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DISCOURSE 



IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 



GLORIOUS REFORMATION 



SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN SYNOD OF 
WEST PENNSYLVANIA, 



BY S. S. SCHMUCKER, D, D. 

Professor of Theology in the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. 



PUBLISHED BY SYNOD. 



NEW-YORK: _ 

GOULD & NEWMAN, 

CORNER OF FULTON AND NASSAU STS. 

1838. 









'*& 



Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 
1838, by Gould & Newman, in the Clerk's Office of the 
District Court of the Southern District of New- York. 



5 J- 2. S 



J. F. TROW. PR. 






PREFACE 



... The following discourse was prepared by appoint* 
ment of the Ev. Lutheran Synod of West Pennsyl- 
vania, in accordance with a resolution of that body* 

: loudly called for by the signs cf the times, recom- 
mending that a discourse on the Reformation be an- 
nually delivered by each 'member of Synod before 
the people of his charge, and resolving that one 
should annually be delivered before the Synod, on 
the same topic. 

In relinquishing his manuscript to the Synod for 
publication, he acted under the conviction, that the 
real character of popery, according to the theory of 
its unalterable canons, which are carried into execu- 
tion wherever papists have entire power, is but im- 
perfectly known by our American citizens. The 
writer regrets, that in presenting the features of this 
interesting subject, he was unavoidably led to refer to 
the corruptions of a church, some of whose members 
are found in our own community, with whom he 
and his brethren are in daily habits of friendly in- 
tercourse. This feeling is the more sensibly expe- 
rienced, as we believe the great body of our native 
Catholics to be as true friends to our country as the 
mass of our citizens generally ; and believe them not 
only innocent of any design against our liberties, but 
even unacquainted with the long catalogue of inci- 
dents in the history of their church, by which the 
popes and priests have for twelve centuries past 
proved themselves the enemies of human liberty ^ 



PREFACE. 



civil and religious ; unacquainted, generally, with 
those dangerous principles in the canons and decrees 
of their church, by which their priesthood were actu- 
ated in their former persecutions, and in conformity 
with which they may reasonably be expected to de- 
stroy the present liberties of both Protestants and Ca- 
tholics, unless the eyes of the community are opened 
in time. Yet as we shall make no statements 
unsustained by good authority, we cannot be re- 
sponsible, if it shall appear that popery is a corrup- 
tion of true apostolical Christianity, that the Ro- 
mish priests have generally been enemies to the 
liberty of their own members, as well as of Protes- 
tants ; and that the Roman Catholic church at this 
day, and in our own country, avows principles hostile 
to the rights of man and the liberties of the land, 
to which our Catholic fellow-citizens have uncon- 
sciously assented whenever they professed indefi- 
nitely, to believe as Holy mother church believes. 
Our Catholic friends ought rather to unite with us 
in the denunciation of principles, which are alike 
repugnant to their feelings of natural right, incon- 
sistent with the future security of their own liber- 
ties, as well as ours, and adverse to the declarations 
of God's holy word. 

S. S. SCHMUCKER. 

Theol. Seminary , Gettysburg, Oct. 13, 1837. 



DISCOURSE, &c. 



When, in the course of human events, we 
behold a people emerge from slavery, and 
"assume, among the powers of earth, the sepa- 
rate and equal station, to which the laws of 
nature and of nature's God entitle them," the 
sight is one of no ordinary interest ; for slavery 
is odious, the civil rights and privileges of a 
nation are valuable, and new scope is given 
for the development of mind in the prosecution 
of moral, social and political principles. But, 
my brethren, should we behold a revolution 
in which the yoke of bondage is thrown off, 
not by one people, but, in rapid succession, by 
a whole family of nations, and that yoke not 
only one of civil, but also of religious bon- 
dage, the spectacle would rise to incalculably 
greater interest ; because the effects are far 
more extensive, the principles involved far 
more elevated, and the privileges conferred 

1* 



6 

such as appertain, not only to the temporal, 
but also to the eternal interests of men. Such 
was the glorious Reformation of the sixteenth 
century, effected by God himself, not miracu- 
lously, but in accordance with the analogies of 
his Providence, through a band of intrepid, 
noble-minded, yet imperfect men. The fruits, 
both civil and religious, of this Revolution, we, 
in these United States, most richly enjoy ; but 
its origin and incidents, we are prone too often 
to forget, and too seldom to inculcate on the 
popular mind. 

'Tis little more than three hundred years, 
since Luther, confessedly the most prominent 
of these moral heroes, the chieftain of this 
Spartan band, was born ; and about six weeks 
afterwards his illustrious coadjutor, Zuingle, 2 
first saw the light. At that time all the civi- 
lized nations of Europe, Germany, France, 
England, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, 
Italy, &c. &c, however diverse their languages, 

1 Luther was oorn Nov. 10th, 1483. 

2 Zuingle was born Jan, 1st, 14*4 



and habits, and political interests and institu- 
tions, were consolidated into one religious des- 
potism, having one man, the pope at Rome, the 
pretended vicegerant- of Christ on earth, at its 
head ! Papal Rome was then the mistress of 
the earth, in a far more important sense than 
in the days of her pagan glory, when she sway- 
ed the sceptre of political dominion, but suffer- 
ed her vanquished foes to worship their own 
gods. Then she controlled civil interests and 
outward acts, now she gave laws to the intel- 
lect of half the known world, regulated their 
social intercourse, prescribed their religious 
duties, and made her power felt in the inmost 
recesses of the soul. The pretended successor 
of St. Peter, still claimed the right 

" Of raising monarchs to their thrones, 
Or sinking them with equal ease !" 

Forgetting that " no man can forgive sins 
but God only," 1 he sacrilegiously pretended that 
like "the Son of man, he had power on earth. 

1 Mark 2:7. 



to forgive sins/* And when thwarted in his 
purposes, he claimed the right of placing whole 
nations under papal interdict, and thus as he 
pretended, and an ignorant, superstitious people 
believed, of closing the gates of heaven against 
them ! 

Such was the galling yoke of spiritual tyranny 
under which the civilized world was groaning, 
when He, who purchased the church with his 
own blood, and in prophetic vision revealed to 
John, the downfall of Babylon, the mother of 
harlots, sent deliverance. Now, how is she 
fallen ! Stript of her most valuable dominions, 
and wooed with little ardor by her flatterers 
that remain ! Now she is seen begging favor 
at the feet of monarchs, who once trembled at 
her nod, and seeking by a desperate effort in 
this new world, to retrieve the losses and re- 
cover from the shocks inflicted on her by the 
still lingering effects of the Reformation in 
the old. That Reformation stands unique on the 
tablets of universal history ; there has been no 
1 Matth. 9: 6. 



other equal to it, and there cannot be. For the 
papal hierarchy will never regain such a colos- 
sal magnitude, nor such despotic sway over the 
civilized world ; and the nations of Europe 
will never again bow to such an iron yoke. 
That marvellous and wide-spread revolution in 
the church, stands authenticated as the pecu- 
liar work of God, and exhibits the most bril- 
liant displays of his providential guidance, as 
well as verifications of the promise : " Lo, 1 am 
with you always, even to the end of the world." 

The period for this event teas icisely chosen by 
the Head of the Church. 

As changes in the character of individuals 
and of nations are by the laws of mind gene- 
rally gradual ; so the meridian light of the 
Reformation did not immediately burst in upon 
the midnight gloom of the dark ages. The two 
centuries preceding the Reformation may be 
regarded as the dawn of that glorious day, as 
preparatory and introductory to it. In Prague* 



10 

the capitoi of Bohemia, not more than about 
seventy miles from Wittenberg, Conrad Stick- 
na, 1 and John Milicz, 2 had publicly inveighed 
against the corruption of both priests and peo- 
ple, and especially against the mendicant friars a 
centuiy and a half before the Reformation of 
Luther ; and Matthias von Janow, the confes- 
sor of Charles IV. had even gone so far in 
several instances, as to administer the holy sup- 
per in both kinds, although he was soon com- 
pelled to recant. Wickliffe in England, and 
Peter d' Ailly, Chancellor of the University at 
Paris, bore similar testimony against Romish 
corruption. 

In the century immediately preceding the 
Reformation, Huss and Jerome arose as wit- 
nesses for the truth under very favorable cir- 
cumstances. They dwelt in the same city 
where Sticka and Milicz had taught before 
them. And the University of Prague, in which 
they were professors, was at that time the most 

1 Obiit, A. D. 1369. 2 A. D. 1374 obiit. 



11 

celebrated in all Europe, except that in Pari^ ? 
and was frequented by thousands of young 
men from every part of Germany. John Ger- 
son also distinguished himself as an advocate 
for reform. Accordingly a partial reformation 
had commenced in Bohemia, A liturgy in the 
vernacular tongue was there extensively used, 
and the council convened at Basil, in 1433, 
even sanctioned its use, and allowed the Bohe- 
mians to administer the cup to the laity, Nor 
were the views of these Reformers entirely 
superficial. If we concentrate the different 
rays of their light, they will amount to a dis- 
tinct preparative to the glorious Reformation 
which followed. The positions maintained by 
the Hussites and Taborites of that century, 
were the unrestricted preaching of God's word ; 
the restoration of the cup to the laity ; that the 
priesthood should be divested of its secular 
power and wealth ; the introduction of a more 
rigid and scriptural church discipline ; the abo- 
lition of monasteries, and images in worship ; 
the rejection of the doctrine of Purgatory, and 



12 

of Auricular Confession, This light, though 
circumscribed in its influence, being confined to 
Bohemia, served, in connexion with scattered 
rays in other countries, to prepare the Catholic 
world for the meridian splendor of the Refor- 
mation, and doubtless assisted even Luther him- 
self in investigating the foundations of Papacy. 
Such was the state of things when Martin 
Luther was born, Nov. 10, 1483, a year which 
witnessed alike the unabated pretensions, and 
the waning power of Romanism, in the unexe- 
cuted papal bull, and interdict against the Re- 
public of Venice ; which was soon succeeded 
by the memorable Auto de Fe, at Seville in 
Spain, at which a number of individuals who 
rejected some of the Romish errors, were 
publicly committed to the flames by the mis- 
named holy Inquisition. Thus we see, that the 
fearful and wide-spreading machinery of Papal 
despotism, had indeed been not a little impair- 
ed by the friction of ages, and some of its wheels 
no longer revolved in effective concert with 
the whole ; but it remained for the monk of 



13 

Wittenberg, placing his lever on the fulcrum of 
the Bible, to ungear the whole machine, and 
shatter a large portion of it to atoms ! 

The period from Luther's birth till the public 
commencement of the Reformation on the 31st 
of October, 1517, was rich in events prepara- 
tory to the great conflict. The irreligious and 
profligate character of the popes was well cal- 
culated still farther to impair the moral energy 
of the whole ecclesiastical machinery ; for 
though unconverted men will be satisfied with 
unconverted ministers, there is a general sense 
of moral propriety pervading our race, which 
demands of the priests of our holy religion ex- 
emption from flagrant immorality. But the 
popes of this period were a disgrace to humanity. 
Innocent VIII, and in a still more flagrant man- 
ner, Alexander VI. who was himself the illegi- 
timate son of Pope Calixtus III, squandered 
the papal treasures on the offspring of their licen- 
tousness. Alexander VI, is styled by an emi- 
nent historian " a monster of a man, inferior to 
no one of the most abandoned tyrants of anti- 
2 



14 

quity." 1 And Julius II, was a restless, ambi- 
tious soldier, who though the pretended vice- 
gerant of the Prince of peace, involved in war 
successively the Venitians, the Swiss, the Spa- 
niards and the French. If such was the cha- 
racter of the Holy Fathers themselves, there 
can be nothing surprising in the corruption of 
the great body of the priests and people, and 
nothing dubious in the alleged necessity of a 
reformation both in the head and members of 
the Romish church. Indeed, so glaring was 
this necessity, that it had been long acknow- 
ledged by priests and councils and emperors, 
and was not directly denied by the popes them- 
selves. As early as 1409, the council of Pisa 
decreed a Reformation of the church, in her 
head and members ; and let it be remembered, 
that this was a general council, attended by 
twenty-four cardinals, a great many bishops, 
archbishops, and other prelates, three hundred 
doctors of divinity and of canon law, and re- 

1 Murdoch's Mosheim, Vol. III. p. 9. 



15 

presentatives of thirteen universities. The 
same necessity was reiterated by three or four 
subsequent councils in this century, but the 
work itself was as often defeated by the in- 
trigue of the popes, who did not relish the salu- 
tary discipline, aimed at their infallible holi- 
nesses ! 

Nor should we forget to enumerate, among 
the preparatives of the Reformation, the revi- 
val of learning in the West, the increased fa- 
cility of influencing the intellect of Europe by 
the recently invented art of printing, and the 
emigration of many of the Greek literati, after 
the capture of Constantinople by Mohamed II, 
in 1453, and the downfall of the Greek empire. 
The light of science and literature is ever hos- 
tile to superstition and intellectual bondage. 
Numerous writers had thus sprung up, who 
constituted a liberal party 1 and were strenu- 
ously opposed by the friends of ignorance and 

1 To this party belonged Reuchlin, Erasmus, 
Parkheimer, Herman von Busch, Ulrich von Hutten, 
and ail the more enlightened minds of the age. 



16 

superstition. They ridiculed the vices and igno- 
rance of the church and priesthood, pouring 
into their moral wounds the most mordacious 
salt of satire ; but they were destitute of that 
moral principle necessary to bear them through 
the perils and privations of the reformation, and, 
like their leader Erasmus, turned traitors to 
the cause in the day of fiery trial. Nor was 
this surprising. For, although the popular 
reverence for the papal hierarchy had much 
abated, the mightiest monarchs of Europe re- 
garded the popes as formidable enemies, on 
account of their influence on the oath of allegi- 
ance of every Catholic subject. The few in- 
dividuals who had attempted to carry forward 
the standard of reform, were unceremoniously 
crushed beneath the thunderbolts of the Vati- 
can. The blood of Huss and Jerome yet pro- 
claimed aloud the tendencies of the holy mo* 
ther toward reformers, and the inquisitorial 
agonies and dying groans of the pious, but en- 
thusiastic Savonarola, 1 of whom Luther re- 

2 M Jerome Savonarola was born at Ferrara, Oct. 



17 

marked that " Christ had canonized him" 1 
though papists burned him ; served as a bea- 
con to deter others from the paths of reform. 

12, 1452 ; religiously educated, and early distin- 
guished for genius and learning. His father in- 
tended him for his own profession, that of physic ; 
but he disliked it; and, unknown to his parents, be- 
came a Dominican monk, A. D. 1474. For a time, 
he taught philosophy and metaphysics ; and then 
was made a preacher and confessor. He soon laid 
aside the hearing of confessions, and devoted him- 
self wholly to preaching, in which he was remark- 
ably interesting and successful. In 1489, he went 
to Florence, where his preaching produced quite a 
reformation of morals. He attacked vice, infidelity, 
and false religion, with the utmost freedom, sparing 
no age or sex, and no condition of men, monks, 
priests, popes, princes, or common citizens. His in- 
fluence was almost boundless. But Florence was 
split into political factions ; and Savonarola did not 
avoid the danger. He was ardent, eloquent, and so 
enthusiastic, as almost to believe, and actually to 
represent what he taught, as being communicated 
to him by revelation. The adverse faction accused 
him to the pope, who summoned him to Rome. 
Savonarola would not go ; and was ordered to 
cease preaching. A Franciscan inquisitor was sent 

1 Amnion's Geshichte der Homiletik, vol. i. p. 183. 
2 



18 

Amid these circumstances it was, that God, 
in his own time, raised up an illustrious band of 
reformers, in the very heart of the Church, who 
endowed with the extraordinary power called 
for by the occasion, declared open war against 
her manifold corruptions. Germany was the 
theatre on which this great conflict was com- 
menced, and Luther the first of the warriors who 
took the field. God had by the special teachings 
of his Providence and Spirit, tutored him for the 
work, and on the 31st October, 1517, after Tet- 

to confront him. The people protected him. But 
at length, vacillating about putting his cause to the 
test of a fire ordeal, he lost his popularity in a mea- 
sure. His enemies seized him by force, put him to 
the rack, and extorted from him some concessions, 
which they interpreted as confessions of guilt ; 
and then strangled him, burned his body, and threw 
the ashes into the river. Thus he died, May 23, 
1498. — His character has been assailed and de- 
fended, most elaborately, and by numerous persons 
both Catholics and Protestants. His writings were 
almost all in Italian. They consist of more than 
300 sermons, about 50 tracts and treatises, and a 
considerable number of letters ; all displaying genius 
and piety, and some of them superior intellect." 



19 

zel, a Dominican friar, had been vending the 
papal indulgences, in the vicinity of Witten- 
berg, with the most barefaced impudence, 
Luther in the fear of God, raised the standard 
of Reformation, by affixing to the church-door, 
his ninety-five theses against indulgences. 
From that day the commencement of the Re- 
formation is usually dated, the day which has 
ordinarily been celebrated in commemoration 
of that glorious event. Having thus placed 
himself in opposition to the holy mother church, 
without entertaining the least idea of the extent 
and importance of the work which God de- 
signed to accomplish by him, Luther devoted 
himself with increased ardor to the continued 
study of that sacred volume, a copy of which 
had providentially fallen into his hands ten 
years before. The change in his own views 
was gradual, and he was simultaneously as 
well the subject as the agent of the Reforma- 
tion. In the preface to his works, written 
eighteen years after this time, he remarks : 
46 Let all who read my books remember that I 



20 

am one of those, who, as St. Augustine says, 
improved myself by writing and by teaching 
others, and belong not to those who in the 
twinkling of an eye were transformed from 
nothing into learned doctors." 1 And who does 
not behold the hand of Providence in this ? 
As his publications were, successively, one but 
a step in advance of the other, his former read- 
ers could the more easily enter into the spirit 
of each, and bear the gradations of light suc- 
cessively revealed. This circumstance, at the 
same time, accounts for the fact, that many of 
his earlier publications contain doctrines which 
he abandoned in the latter part of his life. 

The successive incidents of the great eccle- 
siastical revolution, which grew out of this 
small commencement, we cannot stop to detail. 
Suffice it to say, that in less than two weeks, 
Luther's Theses had traversed nearly all Ger- 
many ; the attention of the greater part of Eu- 
rope was soon arrested, and remained fixed 

1 Seckendorf, p. 89. 



21 

on this conflict. For thirteen years was the 
work of reform carried forward, until all the 
prominent corruptions of Romanism were suc- 
cessively exposed, and the Reformation attain- 
ed some maturity in Germany, as exhibited in 
the Confession presented to the Diet at Augs- 
burg in 1530. But the conflict w T as not yet at 
an end. Various and disastrous w r ere the per- 
secutions and trials, which the Protestant prin- 
ces and their people, who avowed these doc- 
trines, had to endure from the intolerance of 
the Pope, and of the Emperor at his instiga- 
tion, for twenty-five years more, until the 25th 
of September, 1555, nine years after Luther's 
death, when the pacification of Augsburg for 
the first time gave imperial permission to the 
Protestants, to w r orship God after the dictates 
of their own consciences. 

But no sooner had the Reformation com- 
menced in Germany, than it began to spread 
in other countries, with electric rapidity, and 
the intellect of all Europe felt the shock. Two 
years after Luther published his Theses, Ulrick 



22 

Zwingle, one of the most learned and distin- 
guished reformers, whose personal views of 
Papal corruptions, had even been in advance of 
Luther's, also began the work of public reforma- 
tion, at Zurich in Switzerland, which he pro- 
secuted with great ability and success, until 
1531, when he lost his life in a battle between 
the Swiss Protestants and the Catholics who 
invaded their country. Into Sweden the Re- 
formation was introduced by Olaus Petri, a dis- 
ciple of Luther, powerfully seconded by Gus- 
tavus Vasa, from 1523 to 1527. In Denmark 
also, the power of the papal hierarchy was 
destroyed at an early day. About the same 
time numerous advocates of Luther's doctrines 
were found in Spain, Hungary, Bohemia, Po- 
land, Britain and the Netherlands. In England 
papacy received a fatal blow in 1533, from 
Henry VIII., who had before so zealously de- 
fended the holy mother church against Luther, 
as to acquire the title of " Defender of the 
Faith," still retained by his successors. Into 
Scotland the Reformed religion was introduced 



23 

mainly by that inflexible and distinguished 
servant of God, John Knox, about the year 
1559. Nor can we pass unnoticed among the 
honored instruments of divine providence, John 
Calvin, who though not the means of originally 
introducing the Reformation into any country, 
exerted a most extensive influence on all the 
Reformed churches of Europe, and contributed 
more than any other man, to confer order, 
maturity and stability on them all. Commen- 
cing his public labors in Geneva, in 1536, 
about twenty years after Luther arose, he 
continued, for thirty years, by his correspond- 
ence and publications, to advance the cause of 
Reformation throughout different portions of 
Europe ; so that for learning, influence and 
usefulness, he may be classed at the side 
of Luther himself. 

But instead of detailing the circumstances 
of this glorious work of God, to which we owe 
our liberty, civil and religious, let us contem- 
plate a few features by which this reformation 



24 

is distinguished, that a more distinct impression 
of its value may rest upon our minds, 

I. The first feature to which we will advert. 

is that it gave us free access to the uncorrupted 

fountain of truth and duty, God's holy word, as 

the only infallible rule of faith and practice to us. 

Well knowing the treachery of human me- 
mory, God, even under the Old Testament dis- 
pensation, inscribed the decalogue on tablets of 
stone, and Moses his inspired servant, made a 
record of his other instructions, w T hich were to 
be publicly read in the stated worship of the 
people from generation to generation, and to be 
inculcated on their children in the house and 
by the way. In like manner the inspired apos- 
tles, whom the Saviour had commissioned to 
publish the gospel to all nations, knowing that 
the holy religion of the Saviour was designed 
for all generations, reduced its facts and doc- 
trines to writing. The design of this act would 
be evident from the nature of the case, but 
several of the inspired penmen have also dis- 
tinctly expressed it. " These things" says Su 



25 

John, " are written, that ye might believe that 
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that 
believing ye might have life through his name." 1 
Before the New Testament books were writ- 
ten, the Saviour commanded to " search the 
scriptures" of the Old Testament, and not the 
traditions or oral reports, which he condemned 
as tending to make void the sacred word. Paul 
says : "All scripture, that is, the sacred writings, 
are given by inspiration of God, and are profi- 
table for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, 
for instruction in righteousness : that the man 
of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished 
unto all good works." This Paul said in the 
vear A. D. 65, at which time all the books of 
the New Testament had been published, except 
the writings of John, the epistle of Jude and 
2 Peter. And although there was an order of 
men appointed to publish the gospel to all crea- 
tures ; these men were required to study the 
scriptures, 2 and teach according to them. 3 

1 John 20: 31, and also Paul. 
1 Tim. 4: 15. 3 Gal. 1: 8, 

3 



26 

Christians were taught to beware of false 
teachers, 1 to "search the scriptures daily to 
ascertain whether these things were so," 2 and if 
even an angel from heaven should come pub- 
lishing any other gospel than that taught by the 
apostles, he should be accursed. 3 But instead 
of adhering to the word of God as the only 
infallible rule of faith and practice, the Church 
of Rome, had for several centuries prior to the 
Reformation, elevated tradition, and the decrees 
of councils and popes to an equality with God's 
word. Their rseaon for this unhallowed con- 
duct may easily be inferred from the confession 
then made, and recently reiterated by a papal 
writer 4 in this country, that the doctrines and 
rites of their church could not be proved from 
the scriptures alone. The earliest records of 
these unauthorized additions to Christianity 
were found, not in the pages of the Bible, but in 

1 2 Pet. 2: 1,2. 2 Acts J7: 11. 

3 Gal. 1 : 8. Rev. 22: 18, 19. John 5: 39. 
1 Thess. 5: 27. Eph. 6: 17. 

4 Hughes, in controversy with Breckenridge. 






27 

writers of the age in which those unscriptural 
doctrines were added to their creed ; or, in the 
canons of the councils w T ho first approved them, 
The authority of these writers and councils was 
therefore magnified at the expense of God's 
word, during centuries before the Reformation, 
whenever any necessity roused them from their 
slumber of licentiousness and ignorance to at- 
tempt the proof of their corrupt system. But 
so far as we have been able to learn, no coun- 
cil before that of Trent, a few years after the 
Reformation, had even formally decreed the 
entire equality of human traditions and decrees 
of councils with God's holy word. Yet the 
Bible itself had for centuries been almost an un- 
known book. Select portions only were used 
in worship, and thousands of ministers lived 
and died without having seen a copy of the 
entire scriptures. When Luther himself provi- 
dentially found one in the library of the convent, 
he was surprised to perceive that the few pas- 
sages read in the service, did not contain the 
w T hole scriptures ! ! Pellican, one of the re- 



28 

formers declares that at the time of the Refor- 
mation, a Greek Testament could not be pur- 
chased in all Germany for any price ! Scarcely 
any ministers of the age had a critical know- 
ledge of the Bible, and when Luther arose, there 
was not an individual in the papal world, not even 
in all the University of Paris, who could con- 
front him on the ground of scripture ! But the 
Reformation and the Bible went hand in hand. 
It was by the Bible that God commenced the 
reformation in the heart of Luther in the con- 
vent, and by translation of the Bible into the 
vernacular tongues, did Luther and the other 
blessed instruments of God propagate the great 
work throughout Europe. This was so well 
understood by the Romanists themselves, that 
as Sarpi, their own historian informs us, one of 
the reasons urged at the council of Trent for 
interdicting the Bible to the laity was, " that 
the Lutherans had succeeded only with those, 
who had been accustomed to read the Scrip- 
tures." 1 And when compelled by the progres- 
1 Sarpi, Lib. II. § 52. (Cramp 53.) 



29 

sive illumination of the age to make some ap- 
peal to the "law and the testimony," one of the 
arguments assigned by that council for adopting 
the corrupt Latin translation instead of the ori- 
ginal, was, " unless the Vulgate were declared 
to be divine in every part, immense advantages 
would be yielded to the Lutherans, and innu- 
merable heresies, (as they styled the views of 
the Reformers,) would arise to trouble the 
(Romish) church." 1 Accordingly the only 
Bible to which our Catholic friends have access 
even at this day, by consent of their spiritual 
guides, is this corrupted translation, or transla- 
tions of this translation, which after having been 
carefully corrected, and pronounced immaculate 
by pope Sixtus V. in 1590, was two years sub- 
sequently altered in about 2000 places by Pope 
Clement VIII, the changes in some cases affect- 
ing whole verses, and in many others giving a de- 
cidedly contradictory signification.' 2 This trans- 
lation moreover adds several entire books which 

1 Cramp's Textbook, p. 52. 
Ibid, p. 52, 53. 

3* 



30 

do not belong to the word of God at all. And 
if it were in the power of the Roman pontiff and 
his priests to banish the genuine word of God 
from the world, they would gladly do it. Else 
why are they so bitterly opposed to the opera- 
tions of Protestant Bible societies, whose object 
is to place the word of God faithfully translated 
from the original, and without note or comment, 
into every family ? Else how could the late 
pope Pius VII, in his reply to the inquiries of the 
Polish bishops, what course they should pursue 
in regard to Bible societies, use such language 
as this : " We have been truly shocked, (says 
his holiness.) at this crafty device, (namely the 
distribution of the word of God by these socie- 
ties,) by which the very foundations of religion 
are undermined. For it is evident that the holy 
scriptures when circulated in the vulgar tongue, 
have through the temerity of men, produced 
more harm than benefit. Continue therefore, 
diligently to warn the people entrusted to your 
care, that they fall not into the snares which are 
prepared for their everlasting ruin (or in other 



31 

Words, that they receive not the Bible, offered 
them by these societies !") 1 Ought not every 
enlightened Catholic to suspect either the capa- 
city or fidelity of those religious teachers, who 
are afraid to let the doctrines which they teach 
as the truth of God, be tested by the word of 
God? 

How different is the conduct of Protestant 
ministers I How different the state of things in 
Protestant churches! Since the glorious Refor- 
mation, the original scriptures are the text-book 
in the studies of ministers, and are accessible to 
all of every profession who are versed in the 
languages in which they are written. They 
have been faithfully translated into all the dif- 
ferent languages of Christendom, and into a 
vast multitude of heathen tongues, and distri- 
buted in millions of copies throughout the coun- 
tries of the Reformation. The Protestant 
minister is confessedly the expounder of the 
word of God, the Protestant layman is taught to 
search the scriptures like the nobler Bereans, to 

1 Protestant, Vol. f„ pp. 256-259. 



32 

see whether these things be so. The grand, the 
cardinal principle of both is, " the Bible, the Bible 
is the religion of Protestants !" Fellow-Chris- 
tian, do you triumph in the conviction that the 
criteria by which you judge your hopes of eter- 
nal life, are based not on the ipse dixit of popes 
and councils, nor on the uncertain tradition of 
fallible men, but on the infallible word of God ? 
Remember you are indebted for this privilege 
to the blessed Reformation, and let your grati- 
tude ascend to heaven for this favor ! Do 
you make that word the man of your counsel, 
and the guide of your life ; in every time 
of doubt or difficulty, do you seek instruc- 
tion of God himself by resorting " to the law 
and the testimony ?" Forget not that the Refor- 
mation, conferred on you this delightful privi- 
lege. Does this word enable you daily to hold 
communion with those men of God, who wrote 
as the Holy Ghost inspires ? Do you peruse the 
predictions of the ancient prophets, or read the 
very letters which the apostles wrote to the 
first churches, thus enjoying the privileges of 



33 

the primitive Christians ? Do you find the pre- 
cious Bible evinced a book divine by its elevat- 
ing, transforming, beatifying influence on your 
soul 1 Then forget not, that for all these high 
and holy privileges, your gratitude is due to the 
glorious Reformation by which God delivered 
our fathers from papal darkness and supersti- 
tion. 

II. The Reformation has delivered the church 
from a multitude of doctrinal and practical 
corruptions. 

Instead of worshiping God through ihe pre- 
tended mediation of angels, or the Virgin Mary, 
and other mortals termed saints, as is done even 
at this day in the Romish church, and offering 
to them a species of ic or ship, Protestants have 
restored to them the privilege of worshiping 
God and him alone, through the divine Saviour. 
Pope Pius IV. whose creed is embraced in the 
standards of the whole Romish church, employs 
this revolting language expressive of the Ca- 
tholic faith : " I also believe that the saints 



34 

who reign with Christ, are to be worshiped 
and prayed to" ] The multitude of these pre- 
tended saints is almost such, that no man can 
number them ; their works of piety and their 
stupendous miracles are treasured up in fifty- 
four folia volumes for the edification of the 
children of the holy mother church ! Some of 
these saints, it is believed, never existed on earth 
except in the imagination of the biographers 
who fabricated the legends of them. Such are 
Saint Longinus, who is said to have been the 
Roman soldier that pierced the spear into the 
Saviour's side on the cross ; the gigantic St. 
Christopher, who is reputed to have carried 
Christ across an arm of the sea f St. Amphibo- 
lius, who was only the cloak of Albans, the Bri- 
tish protomartyr ! ! Some of these saints were 
murderers, and traitors, 3 such as the murderers 
of the Henrys of France, of the Prince of Or- 

1 Creed of Pius IV. Art. 20. Concil. Trident. 
Sess. 25. de lnvocat. Catechism. Rom. Part III. 
Ch. 2. 

* 2 Home on Popery, p. 16. 

3 Brownlee's Popery an Enemy &c, 152 — 3, 



35 

ange, and Garnet of the gunpowder plot. Others 
are by the best historians ranked among the 
most unprincipled, and notoriously corrupt sin- 
ners of their age. Such, to specify but one 
other, was Saint Gregory VII. named Hilde- 
brand, of the eleventh century, who in order to 
raise the church above all human authority, to 
separate the clergy from all those social ties by 
which they were united to the people, and to 
convert them into a kind of standing army, 
whose entire interest it would be to obey 
implicitly the papal mandate, forcibly introduced 
the oft-attempted, and commended celibacy of 
the clergy, thus impiously denouncing the matri- 
monial relation, and separating hundreds of hus- 
bands from their lawful wives, fathers from 
their children, whilst it is* notorious that he him- 
self was living in illicit amours with Matilda, a 
very opulent and powerful Italian princess. 1 
What worshiper of the true God can reflect 
without horror on the idea of paying religious 
veneration to such monsters of iniquity ! As 
Mosheim, Hist. 11th Cent. 



36 

well might we return to the era of Pagan Rome, 
and unite in the worship of her Jupiter and Juno, 
her Venus, and her Mars ! But blessed be God, 
the Reformation has restored to us the primitive 
and precious doctrines of the gospel, has taught 
us " that there is but one God, and one media- 
tor between God and man, the man Christ 
Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all." 1 
Neither is there salvation in any other, for there 
is no other name under heaven given among 
men, whereby we must be saved. 2 Blessed be 
God, we now know, that " if any man sin, we 
have an advocate with the Father," who is, not 
the Virgin Mary, nor an angel, nor a real, or 
pretended saint," but is Jesus Christ the right- 
eous, who is the propitiation for our sins, and 
not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole 
world. 3 Instead of believing that " the good 
works of believers are truly and properly meri- 
torious, and fully worthy of eternal life ;" 4 the 

1 1 Tim. 2: 5, 6. 2 Acts 4: 12. 

3 1 John 2: 1, 2. 4 Con. Trid. Sess. 6, 

chap. 16. Can. 32. 



37 

Reformation, by restoring to us the good word 
of God, has taught us to despair of the filthy 
rags of our own righteousness, to believe that 
" by grace we are saved, through faith, and 
that not of ourselves ; it is the gift of God ; not 
of works, lest any man should boast. ,n 

Instead of the mutilated and corrupted sacra- 
ments of the Romish church, the Reformation 
has restored to us the primitive, simple ordi- 
nances of the gospel. The papal priests refuse 
to give the cup to the laity, whilst the Saviour 
gave it to all, and as if foreseeing the corrup- 
tions of afterages, added the express injunc- 
tion: "drink ye all of this cup :" for he append- 
ed no such injunction in reference to the bread. 
The Romish church believe that the bread and 
wine in the eucharist are no longer bread and 
wine, but are converted by the consecration of 
the priest into the real material body and blood 
of the Saviour, a doctrine contradicted by com- 
mon sense, refuted by the concurrent testimony 
of all our senses of touch, of taste, of smell 
1 Ephes. 2: 8, 9. 
4 



38 

and of sight. The Reformation has taught ug 
to regard the ordinance not as a renewed sac- 
rifice or mass ; but as a mnemonic ordinance 
to commemorate the dying love of the Saviour, 
and to serve as a pledge of his spiritual pre- 
sence and blessing on all worthy participants. 
The Romish church has also, since the days of 
Peter Lombard, in the twelfth century, added 
five other sacraments to the two instituted by 
our Lord, viz. Confirmation, (Protestants do 
not hold confirmation as a sacrament) Penance, 
Orders, Matrimony and Extreme Unction. 

Instead of vainly seeking remission of sins 
from priests and papal indulgences, the Refor- 
mation has taught us that " no man can forgive 
sin but God only" 1 and that none but "the Son 
of man hath power on earth to forgive sin." 2 
The Romish pope had not only attempted to 
wrest this prerogative from the God of hea- 
ven ; 3 but had actually converted his pretend- 

l Mark-2:"77~ 2 Luke 5: 21. 

3 The decree of the Council of Trent explicitly 
decides, that priests forgive sins judicially and not 
tieelaratively. 



39 

ed power into an ordinary article of merchan- 
dise ; had published to the papa! world a tariff 
of human crimes, affixing to each the price for 
w hich it would certainly be pardoned, or rath- 
er, as it may be styled, the expense at which it 
might be committed ! ! This power of selling 
indulgences was not even claimed by the popes 
prior to the twelfth century, much less was it 
granted them by the Saviour. It was doubtless 
and still is one of the most fearful, soul-destrcy- 
ing corruptions of Christianity ever perpetrated 
on earth. It made it the interest of pope and 
priest, that men should commit crimes frequent- 
ly and continually. The more vicious and cor- 
rupt the people, the greater the profits of the 
priests. It is obvious that in the hands of a 
priesthood sufficiently ignorant of God's word, 
sufficiently licentious, and destitute of spiritual- 
ity to practise such a system, it must have a 
powerful tendency to obliterate from the popu- 
lar mind all just sense of the guilt of sin, all 
conviction of what rendered the psalmist's trans- 
gressions most painful to him, " against thee, 
thee only have I sinned,/ and done this evil ia 
thy sight." 



40 

Let it not be imagined that this soul-destroy- 
ing practice belonged only to the dark ages. 
Even at this day as travellers inform us, adver- 
tisements are put up in different catholic coun- 
tries of Europe, directing the victim of priestly 
deception whither to bear his money in order 
to barter it for indulgences ! ! No longer than 
the 24th of May, 1824, did Pope Leo XII, him- 
self issue a bull, pledging " the most plenary, 
and complete indulgence, remission and par- 
don of all their sins," to such as during the en- 
suing year of Jubilee, would visit the churches 
of Rome and perform the prescribed ceremo- 
nies there ! ! 

Instead of a professed celibacy of the priests 
and nuns, accompanied by the most appalling 
scenes of licentiousness and moral pollution, 
the Reformation, through the Scriptures, has 
again taught the church, that marriage is an 
ordinance of God, " is honorable in all," both 
priests and nuns, and is favorable in its tend- 
ency to chastity and every moral virtue. 
When we hear the Apostle Paul inculcating 
that a bishop, or minister, should be blameles 



41 

the husband of one wife r when we remember 
too that the apostle Peter, whom the Roman- 
ists are prone to cite as the first pope, was 
a married man ; 2 it is amazing that a church 
professing to follow the instructions of Christ 
and his apostles, could so directly in the face 
of the Scriptures, denounce what God enjoin- 
ed, and even enact laws of absolute prohibition 
against those of the priesthood, who wished to 
honor the institution which God appointed. 
Bat in reality the sacred volume had for ages 
before the Reformation been virtually suppres- 
sed, and the corrupt system of popery had gra- 
dually grown up whilst the Bible was really un- 
known to the priests and withheld from the 
people. Attempts were made in the earlier 
ages of Christianity, long before the existence 
of the papal hierarchy, to enjoin celibacy on 
the priesthood. The council of Nice however, 
A. D. 325, through the influence of a celebrat- 
ed Christian sufferer, the one-eyed Paphnu- 

1 1 Tim. 3: 2 ; see also Titus 1: 8, 
2 Matt S: 14. Luke 4: 38. 



4 



* 



42 

tius, { rejected the growing error. But that 
memorable century had not been closed when 
the bishop of Rome, Siricius (A. D. 385) and 
soon after several Western Synods, enjoined it 
with some success. The principal circum- 
stance which introduced celibacy among the 
ministry at that time was, that it became cus- 
tomary to elect monks to the pastoral charge 
of churches, so that the monastic life began to 
be regarded as preparation for the ministry, and 
as monks had vowed celibacy, the matrimoni- 
al state was discouraged among the clergy, but 
could not be generally suppressed even in the 
Latin church, until the time of Gregory VII. in 
11th century. 

The natural consequences of this perversion 
of God's appointed laws, soon became manifest 
in the appalling scenes of corruption and licen- 
tiousness, in which according to contemporane- 

1 Socratis Histor. Lib. I. chap. VIIL This 
celebrated man had one of his eyes bored out in 
the persecutions, and so much was he esteemed and 
beloved by the emperor Constantine, that he is said 
often to have kissed the extinguished eye. 



43 

ous Catholic writers, monks and nuns, priests, 
bishops and popes were alike implicated ! 

# [At an early day after the introduction of 
celibacy it became customary for the priests 
to keep single females in their houses as pro- 
fessed religious sisters. 1 To suppress the dis- 
orders thus introduced by these pretended 
friends of celibacy, it was found necessary to 
prohibit the priests from having any females in 
their houses, except their own mothers and sis- 
ters. But horrible to relate, from a decree of 
the Concil Moguntiae, A. D. 888, w r e learn 
that some of them had children by their own 
sisters ! 2 By a canon of the Concil. iEnham- 
ense, A. D. 1009, it is expressly asserted, that 
some of them had not only one, but even two 
and more women living with them ; that their 
voluptuous indulgences constituted their princi- 

* The portion of this paragraph included in [ 
was omitted in the delivery. 

1 The mulieres subintroductcB. See Gieseler 
Vol. I, and Mosheim, Vol. I. 

2 Canon 10, Mansi XVIII. p. 67. See Giese- 
ler's Hist. Vol. II. p. 112. 



44 

pal object of pursuit in life ; and that they did 
not blush to be engaged with prostitutes, even 
more publicly, more ostentatiously, more lasci- 
viously and more perseveringly than the most 
unprincipled vagrants " among the laity." 1 Hun- 
dred of thousands of young females were enti- 
ced into their nunneries under pretence of 
spending their life in religious seclusion. These 
nunneries were almost invariably in the imme- 
diate vicinity of the institutions of the priests : 
and in different instances, where these esta- 
blishments were torn down, subterranean pas- 
sages were discovered conducting from the 
one to the other ! ! Clemangis, a distinguished 
French catholic, who studied at Paris under 
the learned Gerson, and lived about fifty years 
before the time of Luther, gives such a descrip- 
tion of the nunneries as cannot be repeated at 
large before this audience. After enumerating 
various particulars, he adds, " What else are 

^Gieseler's History, Amer. ed. 1835. Vol. II. 
p. 112. Omnes Dei ministros, &c. See also, pp. 
114, 276. 



45 

these nunneries than houses of prostitution ? 
so that in our day for a female to take the veil, 
is the same as publicly to offer herself for pros- 
titution. 1 Geo. Cassander, a Catholic writer, 
born a few years before the Reformation, testi- 
fies "that scarcely one could be found in a hun- 
dred of the priests who was not guilty of illicit 
commerce with females." 2 Many of the popes 
were among the most licentious and corrupt 
men to be found in the annals of human debau- 
chery, 3 and Pope Paul III. even licensed broth- 
els, for a regular sum of money. 4 ] 

1 Mc Gavin's Protestant, Vol. II. p. 718. 

2 Protestant, Vol. II. p. 718 ; also Murdock's 
Mosheim, Vol. II. p. 71. 

3 Examples of such popes may be found in 
McGavin's Protestant, Vol. II. pp. 27, 28. 

4 " In the third year of his papacy, Paul III. 
granted a bull for publicly licensing brothels, and 
gave an indulgence for the commission of lewdness, 
provided the man paid a certain fine to the holy see, 
and the woman a yearly sum for her license, and 
entered her name into the public register. In the 
days of this pope, there are said to have been 
45,000 such women in Rome." — Protestant, Vol. 
I. p. 141. 



46 

Such according to the testimony of Romish 
writers themselves, was the condition of the 
church prior to the Reformation ! What gra- 
titude is not due from every friend of virtue or 
religion, that these corruptions have been ban- 
ished from at least a large portion of the Chris- 
tian world. What gratitude is due from every 
father and mother, that our eyes have been 
opened upon the corruption of these nunneries, 
that our daughters are no longer sent thither 
to be sacrificed to licentious priests ! With 
what gratitude should we cherish the recollec- 
tion of the glorious Reformation ! and how 
faithfully should we labor by the dissemination 
of the word of God and of the spirit of piety 
among our fellow citizens of all descriptions to 
resist the progress of popery amongst us ! 

But may we not in charity doubt the justice 
of the inference from the character of the Ro- 
mish institutions and priesthood of former ages, 
to those of the present day ? Has not the Ro- 
mish church itself been reformed by the streams 
of light thrown around her by the Reforma- 



47 

tion ? With sincere delight and with gratitude 
to God would we adopt this opinion in all its 
latitude, if truth permitted us. Some effect the 
Reformation has doubtless exerted on the Ro- 
man Catholic church. In Protestant countries 
and especially in our own land, the native Cath- 
olic laymen are in general as moral as the mass 
of the community around them, and their 
priests generally observe external propriety of 
deportment. But that their monasteries and 
nunneries in Catholic countries are still nearly 
as corrupt as ever, and that the celibacy of the 
monks and priests leads to the same licentious- 
ness of practice ; is evident from undeniable 
authority, from the testimony of Romanists 
themselves ! ! Scipio de Ricci, a bigotted Ro- 
man prelate, but a good man, being employed 
by the Duke of Tuscany to reform the nunne- 
ries in that territory, visited these institutions, 
and presented to the pope the most revolting 
picture of these sinks of corruption. 1 The 

1 " The vicar of Prato, Lorenzo Palli, being 
interrogated (by Ricci) answered that the nuns be- 



48 
character of these establishments in South 

lieved neither the sacraments of the church, nor the 
eternity of another life ; that they denied certain 
criminal actions to be sins, and especially those 

of the flesh."* " The disorders discovered at 

Prato, were only the sequel of those which the gov- 
ernment had rooted out of the convents of Pistoia. 
In two letters of Flavia Peraceini, Prioress of Cath- 
erine of Pistoria, to Comparing rector of the epis-* 
copal seminary in the same city, the nun relates 
what passed before her eyes in her own convent, 
what had passed there before she wrote, and what 
still continued to take place in other convents, par- 
ticulary at Prato." 

" It would require both time and memory, (she 
says) to recollect what has occurred during the 
twenty four years that 1 have had to do with monks, 
and all that I have heard tell of them. Of those 
who are gone to the other world, I shall say noth- 
ing ; of those who are still alive, and have little 

decency of conduct, there are very many." * 

" With the exception of three or four, all that I 
ever knew, alive or dead, are of the same charac* 
ter ; they have all the same maxims and the same 
conduct. They are on more intimate terms with 
the nuns than if they were married to them." 

il It is the custom now, that, when they come to 
visit any sick sister, they sup with the nuns, they 
sing, dance, play and sleep in the convent. It is a 
maxim of theirs, that God has forbidden hatred but 



America and the Spanish West Indies is equal* 

not love ; and that the man is made for the woman, 
and the woman for the man. They teach us to 
amuse ourselves, saying, that Paul said the same, 
who wrought with his own hands. They deceive 
the innocent, and even those that are most circum- 
spect ; and it would need a miracle to converse 
with them and not fall. The priests are the hus- 
bands of the nuns, and the lay brothers of the lay 
sisters. In the chamber of one of those I have- 
mentioned, a man was one day found ; he fled ; 
but very soon after they gave him to us as confes- 
sor extraordinary !"■ u The monks have never 

done any thing to me personally to make me dis- 
like them ; but I will say that so iniquitous a race 
as the monks nowhere exists. Bad as the seculars 
are, they do not at all come up to them ; and the 
art of the monks with the world and their superiors 
baffles description."- — —"When they gave us the 
holy water every year, they threw every thing, even 
the beds, into disorder. What a racket they used 
to make ! One time they washed father Manni's 
face and dressed him like a nun. In short, it 
was a perpetual scene of amusements, comedies 
and conversation for ever. Every monk who 
passed by on his way to the chapter, they 
found some means of showing into the convent,, 
and entreated a sick sister to confess herself. 
Everlasting scandal about husbands — of those who 
had stolen the mistress of such a one ; how others 
had avenged themselves in the chapter ; and how 
5 



50 

h notorious : l and God in his inscrutable pro- 
vidence has within late years granted us by the 

they would not have forgiven even in death." — ■ 
" Do not suppose, (she saysy that this is the case in 
our convent alone. It is just the same at Lucia, at 
Prato, at Pisa, at Perugia ; and I have heard things 
that would astonish you. Every where it is the 
same, every where the same disorders, every where 
the same abuses prevail." Let the reader remem- 
ber, that this is the testimony given by inmates of 
the nunneries, given to the Romish bishop, and sent 
by him to the pope with the prayer for reform ! 
No protestant had any hand in it. But instead of 
effecting reform, De Ricci was persecuted and dis- 
graced for publishing the truth to the world ! ! ! 
See The Secrets of Nunneries Disclosed, compiled 
from the autograph manuscripts of Scipio De Ricci, 
Roman Catholic bishop of Pistoia and Prato. by 
Mr. De Potter. Edited by Thomas Roscoe, Abrid- 
ged, pp. 91 — 94. Published by D. Appleton & Co. 
No. 200 Broadway, New- York, 1834. 

1 According to St. Ligori ; who was the author 
of the most modern system of theology published by 
the papists, and was canonized by Pope Pius VII. 
in 1816, the council of Trent made regular and 
standing provision for mulcting those priests who 
keep concubines!! " A bishop (he says) how- 
ever poor he may be, cannot appropriate to him- 
self pecuniary fines without the license of the 
apostolic see. But he ought to apply them to 



51 

testimony of other witnesses beside Maria 
Monk, the most appalling disclosures of mid- 



pious uses. Much less can he apply those fines 
to any thing else but pious uses, which the council 
of Trent has laid upon nonresident clergymen, or 
upon those clergymen who keep concubines ." Lig- 
ori, Ep. Doc. Mor. p. 444, as translated by Mr. 
Smith, late a popish priest, in his Synopsis of Moral 
Theology, taken from Ligori, published New-York, 
in 1836. 

" How shameful a thing, (says Mr. Smith) that 
the apostolic see, as they call it, that is, the Pope of 
Rome, should enrich his coffers by the fines which 
he receives frem the profligacy of his clergy ! If 
they keep concubines, they must pay a fine for it, 
but if they marry, they must be excommunicated ! 
This accounts at once for the custom in Spain, and 
other countries, and especially on the island of 
Cuba, and in South America; where almost every 
priest has concubines, who are known by the name 
of neices. — The " Narrative of Rosamond," who 
was once herself one of these concubines, in the 
island of Cuba, portrays the general licentiousness 
of the Popish clergy in colors so shocking, that the 
picture cannot be looked at without a blush. Here 
we see the doctrine fully exemplified by practice. 
This keeping of concubines is a thing so common 
in the Popisn West India Islands, and in South 
America, that it is rarely noticed. 1 ' See Smith's 
Synopsis of Ligori, p. 296, 297. 



52 

night scenes of debauchery, of deception, of 
cruelty, which are transacted in a nunnery on 
the borders of our own country, as if to warn 
the citizens of this republic in time to guard 

1 St. Ligori himself asserts a fact, which as Mr. 
Smith justly observes, strongly corroborates the 
Revelations of Maria Monk ; namely, that refrac- 
tory, incorrigible nuns are punished by imprison- 
ment/or life ; but are not expelled, as some monks 
are. The reason is obvious. Nuns, if expelled, 
would reveal the licentious aud brutal treatment 
they had received from the priests, whilst the latter 
would be careful not to inform on themselves. 
Smith's Synopsis of Ligori's Moral Theology, p. 
231, 232. Maria Monk, p. 138— 142, 2d edit, says, 

u I continued to visit the cellar frequently, to 
carry up coal for the fires, without any thing more 
than a general impression that there were two nuns 
somewhere imprisoned in it. One day while there 
on my usual errand, I saw a nun standing on the 
right of the cellar, in front of one of the cell doors 
I had before observed ; she was apparently en- 
gaged with something within. This attracted my 
attention. The door appeared to close in a small 
recess, and was fastened with a stout iron bolt on 
the outside, the end of which was secured by being 
let into a hole in the stone-work which formed the 
posts. The door which was of wood, was sunk a 
few inches beyond the stone*work, which rose and 



53 



against the inroads of the destroyer. Indeed 
incredible as it might seem, from the questions 
which females are required to answer accord- 



formed an arch overhead. Above the bolt was a small 
window supplied with a fine grating, which swung 
open, a small bolt having been removed from it, on 
the outside. The nun I had observed seemed to be 
whispering with some person within, through the 
little window : but I hastened to get my coal, and 
left the cellar, presuming that was the prison. 
When I visited the place again, being alone, I ven- 
tured to the spot, determined to learn the truth, pre- 
suming that the imprisoned nuns of whom the 
Superior had told me on my admission, were con- 
fined there. I spoke at the window where I had 
seen the nun standing, and heard a voice reply in a 
whisper. The aperture was so small, and the 
place so dark, that I could see nobody ; but I 
learnt that a poor wretch was confined there a pris- 
oner. I feared that I might be discovered, and 
after a few words, which I thought could do no 
harm, I withdrew. 

* My curiosity was now alive, to learn every- 
thing I could about so mysterious a subject. I 
made a few inquiries of Saint Xavier, who only 
informed me that they were punished for refusing 
to obey the Superior, Bishop, and Priests. I after- 
ward found that the other nuns were acquainted 



S4 

ing to their own published directory, it is evi» 
dent that even in these United States, the inter- 

with the fact I had just discovered. All I could 
learn, however, was, that the prisoner in the cell 
whom I had spoken with, and another in the ceil 
just beyond, had been confined there several years 
without having been taken out ; but their names, 
connexions, offences, and every thing else relating 
to them, I could never learn, and am still as igno- 
rant as ever. Some conjectured that they had re- 
fused to comply with some of the rules of the con- 
vent, or requisitions of the Superior ; others that 
they were heiresses whose property was desired for 
the convent, and who would not consent to sign 
deeds of it. Some of the nuns informed me, that 
the severest of their sufferings arose from fear of 
supernatural beings. 

" I often spoke with one of them in passing near 
their cells, when on errands in the cellar, but never 
vetured to stop long, or to press my inquiries very 
far. Besides, I found her reserved, and little dis- 
posed to converse freely, a thing I could not won- 
der at when 1 considered her situation, and the 
characters of persons around her. She spoke like a 
woman in feeble health, and of broken spirits. I 
occasionally saw other nuns speaking to them, par- 
ticularly at meal-times, when they were regularly 
furnished with food, which was such as we our- 
selves ate. 

" Their cells were occasionally cleaned, and then 



course of the priests and females at the confes- 
sional is such as no virtuous father or husband 

the doors were opened. I never looked into them, 
but was informed that the ground was their only 
floor. I presumed that they were furnished with 
straw to lie upon, as I always saw a quantity of old 
straw scattered about that part of the cellar, after 
the cells had been cleansed. I once inquired of one 
of them, whether they could converse together, and 
she replied that they could, through a small open- 
ing between their cells, which I could not see. 

u I once inquired of the one I spoke with in pass- 
ing, whether she wanted anything, and she replied, 
" Tell Jane Ray I want to see her a moment if she 
can slip away." When I went up I took an oppor- 
tunity to deliver my message to Jane, who concert- 
ed with me a signal to be used in future, in case a 
similar request should be made through me. This 
was a sly wink at her with one eye, accompanied 
with a slight toss of my head. She then sought an 
opportunity to visit the cellar, and was soon able to 
hold an interview with the poor prisoners, without 
being noticed by any one but myself. I afterward 
learnt that mad Jane Ray was not so mad, but she 
could feel for those miserable beings, and carry 
through measures for their comfort. She would 
often visit them with sympathizing words, and, 
when necessary, conceal part of her food while at 
table, and secretly convey it into their dungeons. 
Sometimes we would combine for such an object : 



56 

ought to permit, such as no wife or daughter 

and I have repeatedly aided her in thus obtaining 
a larger supply of food than they had been able to 
obtain from others. 

' % I frequently thought of the two nuns confined 
in the cells, and occasionally heard something said 
about them, but very little. Whenever 1 visited 
the cellar, and thought it safe, I v ent up to the first 
of them, and spoke a word or two, and usually got 
some brief reply, without ascertaining that any 
particular change took place with either of them- 
The one with whom alone I ever conversed, spoke 
English perfectly well, and French I thought as 
well. I supposed she must have been well educa- 
ted, for I could not tell which was her native lan- 
guage. I remember that she frequently used thes^ 
words when I wished to say more to her, ai d which 
alone showed that she was constantly afraid of pun- 
ishment : " Oh, there's somebody coming — do go 
away !" I have been told that the other prisoner 
also spoke English. 

" It was impossible for me to form any certain 
opinion about the size or appearance of those two 
miserable creatures, for their cells were perfectly 
dark, and I never caught the slightest glimpse even, 
of their faces. It is probable they were women not 
above the middle size, and my reason for this pre- 
sumption is the following : I was sometimes ap- 
pointed to lay out the clean clothes for all the nuns 
in the Convent on Saturday evening, and was al- 



57 

ought to hear without feeling insulted. 1 They 
are too obscene to be publicly repeated be- 

ways directed to lay by two suits for the prisoners. 
Particular orders were given to select the largest 
sized garments for several tall nuns ; but nothing of 
the kind was ever said in relation to the clothes of 
those in the cells." 

1 The ensuing "examination of conscience," as it 
is termed, is extracted from the Catholic's Manual, 
a volume issued by John Power, the popish vicar 
genera] of New-York, pp. 289, 290, 291. Persons 
going to confession, are required to state whether 
they have committed the following sins, viz. — 
u Sins against ourselves by impurity. 1. In 
thoughts : in wilfully dwelling upon or taking plea- 
sure in unchaste thoughts. It must be mentioned 
how long, whether with desires of committing evil ; 
whether they caused irregular motions, and in a 
holy place — and whether the objects of sinful de- 
sires were single or married persons, or persons 
consecrated to God (that is, priests!) 2. In words. 
Speaking obscenely, listening with pleasure to such 
vile language, singing unchaste songs, giving toasts 
and sentiments contrary to modesty. 3. In looks* 
Viewing immodest objects ; reading bad books ; 
keeping indecent pictures ; frequenting plays, and 
tempting others to sin by dissolute glances, ges- 
tures, and immodesty in dress or behavior. 4. In 
actions. Defiling the sanctity of marriage by 
shameful liberties contrary to nature ; in touching 



58 

fore a promiscuous assembly. What an inval- 
uable service have not the blessed reformers 

ourselves or others immodestly, or permitting such 
base liberties. Certain sins of a lonely and abo- 
minable nature. What were the consequences of 
these sinful impurities? explain every thing — the 
number of these bad actions, the length of time con- 
tinued in the habit, and with whom we sinned." 
Protestant vol. II. p. 726, Hartford ed., of 1833. 

Oi similarly obscene character, though not quite 
so much in detail, are the questions published in 
Philadelphia, under the sanction of Mr. Kendrick, 
the Roman prelate of that city, in the Key of Para- 
dise, p. 115. Those in the " Pious Guide to 
Prayer," &c, used in Maryland, and published at 
Georgetown, 1825, fourth edition, p. 145 to 148, 
embrace all the above questions, with additional 
intervening reflections. 

Equally if not more indecent are the questions 
contained in a German work, republished in Balti- 
more, in 1830, and used at least by some German 
Catholics, to the wriier's certain knowledge, in this 
country. It has the sanction of several Romish 
dignitaries in Europe, and on the title page the 
impress " mit Erlaubnisz der Obern," (sanctioned 
by the higher authorities). This work, entitled, 
" Elsasisches Missionsbuchlein" by a priest of the 
society of Jesuits, &c. &c., contains a mirror for 
the confessional (Beichtspiegel), and among many 
other questions similar to those of the New-York 
directory, has the following : 



59 

rendered to the cause of religion, of moral 
purity, of conjugal security, of social happiness, 

11 If you are married, you must state, in open- 
hearted confession, every thing (touching this com- 
mandment, adultery, &c.) which you committed in 
single life ; then also what sins you committed after 
your marriage, either with others or with your 
companion, inasmuch as not all things are allowed 
even to married persons. Do not forget to mention 
what may have taken place between the time of 
your engagement and your actual marriage ; inas- 
much as any thing impure committed at that time 
is yet a mortal sin." 

" I have indulged in a criminal attachment. — 
Add how long." 

" I have been with persons of the other sex du- 
ring the night — How often," &c. 

" I gave occasion to unchaste dreams — How 
often," &c, 

'* I have committed sins of impurity on my own 
person — How often," &c. 

" 1 gave unchaste kisses, or willingly received 
them — How often," &,c, 

" I touched others unchastely, or permitted them 
to take such liberties with me — How often," &,c. 

u I have sinned with persons of the other sex, by 
unchaste acts — How often," &,c. 

" I have sinned against beasts, by licentious 
glances, or in another way — How often," &c. 

Such are the awfully obscene questions which are 



60 

by banishing these corrupting doctrines and 
institutions^ by removing the obscene and filthy 

circulated by Romish priests among the people of 
every rank and age ; and about which, according 
to their own system, they must habitually converse 
with females, of every age, above twelve years !! 
Can any man doubt the debasing and demoralizing 
tendency of making such questions familiar to the 
minds of all sexes and ages, and of requiring fe- 
males, on pain of perdition, to statedly to talk with 
their priests about them ? The writer has had 
serious doubts of the propriety of presenting these 
questions to his Protestant readers even in a note; and 
nothing could induce him to do it, but the extreme re- 
luctance of the Protestant community to believe any 
mere abstract statements of the licentious charac- 
ter and tendency of the Romish religion. Surely, 
when the proofs are taken from their own manuals 
of worship, published by themselves, in our own 
country, by their own bishops, and used in our own 
neighborhood, in their worship, it cannot any longer 
be said, that these charges are slanderous, or are 
applicable only to former ages or other countries. 

But even these questions are not all. Will it be 
believed, that five times as many more, on this 
same filthy subject, many of them far more parti- 
cular and obscene than these, are given as instruc- 
tion to priests, in the Theology of Peter Dens, one 
of the latest systems of Papal theology, republished 
•at Dublin, in 1832, with the sanction of the present 



61 

practice of auricular confession to the priest, 1 
and by restoring to us and our families the pure 
and elevating doctrines of the gospel and the 
simple and holy practices of the primitive 
churches ! The Reformation has restored to 
us God's own word, which teaches us the sanc- 
tity of the marriage relation, teaches females 

Archbishop Murray ? It is now the text-book at 
the Theol. Seminary at Maynooth, and has probably 
been studied by all the Irish priests, who have 
come amongst us, If any man should dispute 
the fact, we can show him the work ! 

1 We subjoin the following melancholy and hu- 
miliating statements from an authentic and highly 
interesting work, written by a converted French 
priest, now in this country, translated by Mr. S. F. 
B. Morse, Professor in the New- York University, 
entitled, Confessons of a French Catholic Priest, p, 
103. &c. 

" Three great principles and tenets are the es- 
sence of confession. The first is, that the confes- 
sor is as God himself, ichose place he holds ; the 
second is, that nothing must be hid from the confes. 
sor, because God knows all, and his vicegerent 
must also know all ; the third is, that a blind and 
most absolute obedience is owed to the confessor as to 
God himself Hence it is easy to see that Popery, 
by an abominable substitution, makes man disap- 
pear as much as possible, and puts God himself in 



62 

as well as males to confess their sins not to the 
priest but to Him, who alone can pardon them, 
to God ; which inculcates a standard of moral 
purity, and of female delicacy, such as would 

the place of man. This idea, once deeply impress- 
ed in the mind of boys, from their childhood, 
strengthened by all the tenets of the Catholic church 
in the confessional, in the catechism, in discourses, 
in books of piety, &c, it is not astonishing that 
such respect, veneration and obedience are paid to 
the confessor. The Protestant who reads the his- 
tory of my country, will cease to gaze with sur- 
prise at those facts (incredible, perhaps to him) of 
a confessor w T ho orders his penitent to kill another 
man by the command of the Lord. When a con- 
fessor ordered the fanatic and deluded Clement to 
kill his king, Henry III., the order was from God. 
When Bamiens stabbed Louis XV., the order was 
from God. W T hen the confessor of Louis XIV. 
ordered him to revoke the edict of Nantes, the 
order was from God. 

" But it would be quite useless to give any more 
particular examples, since, according to the true 
spirit of confession, there is not a single crime which, 
looked at in the light of theology, cannot, must not, 
be advised and ordered by the confessor ; above all, 
for the advat tage of the Catholic church. When 
a man acts for this end, he cannot sin ; for, as it is 
said among priests, 6 the end sanctifies the means. 9 



63 

make a Protestant lady shrink with detestation 
from such questions, as according to their own 
directory, even every American catholic fe- 
male must converse about to her priest at con- 
fession. 

III. The Reformation has given us liberty 
of conscience, and freedom from religious per- 
secution. 

Prior to the Reformation the corruption and 



This is the key-stone to the Romish edifice ; and 
the priest, feeling his human weakness, has called 
the name of God to his help, to strengthen his fee- 
bleness, to authorise his errors, to sanctify his 
crimes. — I have confessed priests and laymen of 
every description, a bishop (once), superiors, cu- 
rates, persons high and low, women, girls, boys. 
I am, therefore, fitted to speak of the confessional. 

."The confession of men is a matter of high im- 
portance in political matters, to impress their minds 
with slavish ideas. As for other matters, confes- 
sors endeavor to give a high opinion of their own 
holiness to fathers and husbands, that they may be 
induced to send to the confessional, without any 
fear, their wives and daughters. Because, doubt- 
less, should fathers and husbands know what passes 
at the confession-box between the holy man and 



64 

tyranny and usurpations of the Romish church 
had risen to such a height, that the people 
were not only denied access to the word of 
their God ; but they were even taught not to 
think for themselves at all in matters of religion, 

their wives and daughters, they never would per- 
mit them again to go to those schools of vice. 
But priests command most carefully to women 
never to speak of their confession to men, and they 
inquire severely about that in every confession. 

" The confession of the female sex is the great 
triumph, the most splendid theatre of priests. 
Here is completed the work which is but begun 
through all their intercourse with women ; for all 
our relations with them begin from their birth and 
continue till their death. In their baptism we 
sprinkle their heads with holy water, at their death, 
their grave ; and the space comprised between 
those two epochs is filled by a thousand ecclesias- 
tical duties. The more I think of this matter, 
the more I remember this sentence — ' Priests, in 
taking the vows of renouncing marriage, engage 
themselves to take the 3 wives of others.' 

"As soon as the young girl, for I speak peculi- 
arly of their confession, enters the confessional, 
6 Bless me, father,' she says, kneeling and crossing 
herself, ' for I have sinned ;' and the priest mum- 
bles 4 Dominus sit in ore tuo et in corde tuo ut, con- 
fitearis omnia peccata tua,' — * The Lord be in your 



65 

to surrender their judgment implicitly to the 
priests, and believe as holy mother church be- 
lieves. The principle on which every true Ro- 
manist is required to act, is thus expressed by 

heart and lips, that you may confess all your sins.' 
If she is an ugly, common country girl or woman, 
she is soon despatched ; but., on the contrary, if she 
is pretty and fair, the holy father puts himself at 
ease, he examines her in the most secret recesses 
of her soul, he unfolds her mind in every sense, 
in every manner, upon every matter. This is the 
way which Theology recommends us to follow in 
our interrogations : ' Daughter, have you had bad 
thoughts? On what subject? how often, &c. 
' Have you had bad desires ; what desires ? Have 
you committed bad actions ; with whom ; what ac- 
tions ?' &c. lam obliged to stop. Many times 
the poor ashamed girl does not dare answer the 
questions, they are so indecent. In that case the 
holy man, ceasing his interrogations, says to her, 
' Listen, daughter, to the true doctrine of the 
church ; you must confess the truth, all the truth, 
to your spiritual father. Do you not know that I am 
in the piace of God. that you cannot deceive him ? 
Speak then ; reveal your heart to me as God 
knows it; you will be very glad when you will 
have discharged this burden from your mind. 
Will you not?'— 'Yes.'— 4 Begin, I will" help you ;' 
and then begins such a diabolical explanation as is 

6* 



66 



pope Pius in his Creed : " I also profess and 
undoubtedly receive all other things delivered, 
defined and declared by the sacred canons, and 



not to be found but in bouses of infamy, I suppose, 
or in our theological bocks. This is so well known, 
that I have often heard of wicked young men say. 
ing to each other, ' Come, let us go to confession, 
and the curate will teach us a great many corrupt 
things which we never knew ;' and many young 
girls have told me in confession, that in order to 
become acquainted with details on those matters 
pleasing to their corrupt nature, they went pur- 
posely to the confessional to speak about it with their 
spiritual father. Sometimes I have heard the con- 
fession of young girls not above sixteen years of 
age, who explained to me such disgusting things 
with a precision, a propriety (or rather impropri- 
ety) of terms, that when I asked them where they 
had gathered all this strange learning, they seemed 
as much astonished at my question as I was at 
their confession ; and said tome: 'Why, father, 
our former confessor taught us ail this, and com- 
manded us never to omit these details, otherwise 
we should be damned,' I replied to them : ' I pray 
you never use such terms again, they are unworthy 
of a Christian mouth, you have misunderstood your 
confessor.' I learned afterwards that these mis- 
guided persons left my confessional, because they 
said I was an ignorant confessor, who did not con- 



67 



general councils, and particularly by the holy 
council of Trent ; and likewise I also condemn, 

fess like others, and who did not cause them to say 
all! 

After so many instructions, the young girl is 
well indoctrinated, well fitted to answer either the 
questions or the purposes of the priest. This 
poison diffused in her heart soon infects her whole 
mind and destroys her purity. It is precisely at 
such a point of time that her cruel foe waits for her. 
When he sees that she is made vicious and corrupt 
by the teachings of the confessional, he is sure of 
his success. 

[The modes by which the priest persuades his 
victim that she is without sin in doing whatever he 
commands, since he is responsible, and since he 
can absolve her from it, and other means of de- 
ceiving at the confessional, are then too graphically 
related to be publicly told ; and I have thought it 
best, says the translator Mr. Morse, with the con- 
sent of the author, to suppress all but the closing 
facts.] 

The truth is, that some cunning priests have a 
seraglio like that of the Sultan, and it is by no 
means an easy task for him to conceal his favor- 
ites from each other, because he says to each that 
she is his only mistress. It would be easy for me 
to enlarge on this point, and to give other details, 
but these I hope will suffice ; perhaps they are 
already too many." p. 106. 112. 



m 

reject and anathematize all things contrary 
thereto and all heresies whatsoever, condemned, 
rejected and anathematized by the church." 1 
The laity are therefore not permitted to imitate 
the noble Bereans, who searched the Scrip- 
tures daily ; they are even prohibited to a cer- 
tain extent by their own priests from obeying 
the precept of the Saviour : Search the Scrip- 
tures, for ye think ye have eternal life, and they 
are they which testify of me. Nay even in our 
midst, Romanists are not permitted even to 
read the miscellaneous literature of their age 
and nation. The freedom of the press is sup- 
pressed in every country on earth, where po- 
pery has power to control it. Nor could any 
other event be expected in our own country, 
if Romanists should gain the ascendency ; for 
this is one of the acknowledged, unaltered and 
unalterable principles of their church. Here 
let our newspaper editors learn what awaits 
them, if they do not in time impartially exam- 

1 Cramp's Textbook, p. 389. 



69 

ine the true politico-religious character of Ro- 
manism, and duly instruct the popular mind on 
this subject. Its very essence is an admixture 
of civil and religious despotism, and the certain 
ultimate result of its preponderance must be a 
union of church and state on anti-republican 
principles. Listen to the testimony of the pa- 
pists themselves. " The pope and emperor 
ought to be implicitly obeyed; the heretic's 
books burned, and the printers and sellers of 
them duly punished. There is no other way to 
suppress and extinguish the pernicious sect of 
Protestants." Thus said the legate of pope 
Adrian VI., to the diet of Nuremberg. A de- 
cree of the Lateran council held in 1515, de- 
termines in substance " That no book shall be 
printed, without the bishop's license ; that those 
who transgressed this decree shall forfeit the 
whole impression, which shall be publicly burn- 
ed ; pay a fine of one hundred ducats ; be sus- 
pended from his business for one year, and be 
excommunicated ; that is, given over to the 
devil, soul and body in God's name and the 



70 

saints!" The celebrated council of Trent 
whose decrees are acknowledged by all Cath- 
olics, decided that " Being desirous of setting 
bounds to the printers, who with unlimited 
boldness, supposing themselves at liberty to do 
as they please, print editions of the Holy Bible 
with notes and expositions, taken indifferently 
from any writer, without the permission of their 
ecclesiastical superiors, &c. Neither shall any 
one hereafter sell such books, or even retain 
them in his possession, unless they have been 
first examined and approved by the ordinary 
under penalty of anathema, and the pecuniary 
fine adjudged by the last council of Lateran" 
(that above mentioned). 1 And with a candor 
truly commendable, which puts to shame those 
protestants who insist on believing modern po- 
pery to be different from that of former ages, 
Pope Gregory XVI., in 1832. explicitly says in 
his Circular letter, " Hue spectat, &c. To this 
point tends that most vile, detestable, and never 

. tramp's Textbook of Popery, p. 58. 



71 

to be sufficiently execrated liberty of booksellers 9 
namely of publishing writings of whatever kind 
they please, a liberty which some persons dare, 
with such violence of language to demand and 
promote. — Clement XIII. our predecessor of 
happy memory, in his circular on the suppres- 
sion of noxious books (i. e. protestant books) 
pronounces : " We must contend with energy 
such as the subject requires ; and w T ith all our 
might exterminate the deadly mischief of so 
many books ; for the matter of terror will never 
be effectually removed, unless the guilty ele- 
ments of depravity be consumed in the fireP 
" The apostolic see has, through all ages ever 
striven to condemn suspected and noxious (i. e. 
Protestant) books, and to wrest them forcibly 
out of men's hands ; it is most clear how rash, 
false and injurious to our apostolic see, and 
fruitful of enormous evils to the Christian (pa- 
pal) public is the doctrine of those, who not 
only reject the censorship of books, as too se- 
vere and burdensome, but even proceed to 
such a length of wickedness as to assert, that 



fg 

it is contrary to the principles of equal justice^ 
and dare to deny to the church the right of en- 
acting and employing it/' 1 pp, 13, 14, 15, Accor- 
dingly a rigid censorship of the press is establish^ 
ed and an Index Expurgatorius is published 
from time to time at Rome, and throughout papal 
countries* containing a list of books printed in 
protestant lands, which no catholic may read on 
pain of excommunication. 2 In this catalogue are 
included not only the prominent Protestant Re- 
formers ; but even such miscellaneous writers 
as Locke, Young, Lavater, Bacon and Addison ! 
A strange method this of obeying the inspired 
precept to prove all things and hold fast that 
which is good ! 3 A strange system of liberty 

See the very valuable work of Dr. Brownie^ 
" Popery an Enemy to civil and Religious Lib- 
erty," p. 119, 120. This work ought to be read 
by every American statesman, and every true friend 
of American liberty. Its author may justly be re« 
gardei as one of the ablest, most learned and inde- 
fatigable champions of Protestantism, which th© 
present age has produced. 

2 Cramp's Text Book, p. 378, 

3 1 Thess. 5: 21. 



73 

of thought and freedom of discussion to be en- 
grafted on our republican institutions ! 

Nor are these restrictions mere idle statutes. 
They are written in the blood of millions of our 
brethren, who sought to serve God according 
to the dictates of their conscience, and when 
interdicted had the moral heroism to obey God 
rather than man. The infernal inquisition, as 
it is aptly, and by common consent styled, was 
expressly instituted to execute with fearful 
rigor the tender mercies of mother church on 
all who dare to think or speak for themselves- 
How faithfully this trust has been executed is 
attested, alas ! but too fully by the ensanguined 
annals of the Christian world ! What tyro in 
history has not found his heart sickening at the 
melancholy scenes of torture too horrible for 
human nature to endure ! The Catholic church 
openly professes to believe it her duty to com- 
pel all others to adopt her faith. Pope Pius in 
his bull of confirmation, orders " all the faithful 
to receive and inviolably to observe the de- 
crees of the council of Trent ; enjoining arch- 
7 



74 

bishops, bishops, &c. to procure that observance 
from those under them, and in order thereto, 
if necessary, to call in the aid of the secular 
arm, &C." 1 

Cardinal Bellarmine, one of the acknowledg- 
ed standard authors of the Romish church, 
says, " Experience teaches that there is no other 
remedy for the evil, but to put heretics (Pro- 
testants) to death ; for the (Romish) church 
proceeded gradually and tried every remedy : 
at first she merely excommunicated them ; af- 
terwards she added a fine ; then she banished 
them ; and finally she was constrained to put 
them to death." 2 The general council of the 
Lateran, whose canon is at this day in force, 
decreed : " Let the secular powers be compel- 
led if necessary, to exterminate to their utmost 
power all heretics (Prote&tants) denoted by the 
church." 3 The present textbook of instruction 
in the Maynooth popish College in Ireland, 

1 Cramp, p. 883. 
2 Bellarm. de Laicis, Lib. III. c. 51. see Smith's 
Synopsis of St. Ligori, p. 406. 3 ibid. 



already referred to, which has doubtless been 
studied by many priests now in the United 
States, expressly inculcates: That baptized 
unbelievers, such as heretics (Protestants) and 
apostates usually are, and also baptized schis- 
matics, may be compelled to return to the Ca- 
tholic (Popish) faith, and to the unity of the 
church, by inflicting bodily punishments, 1 " The 
church judges and punishes heretics (Protes- 
tant) because although they are out of the 
church, they being baptized, are subject to the 
(Romish) church V n Nor is this inhuman doc- 
trine, so dangerous to the liberties of every Pro- 
testant, inculcated merely on the priests, or 
kept as a secret among them. In order to 
carry on persecution, the mass of the people 
must be, at least in some degree, prepared for 
it. Therefore, the only copies of the scrip- 
ture which are permitted to be read by the 



1 Petri Dens Theologia, <kc. Vol. II. p. 80. of the 
edition of 1S32. 

2 Do. n. 314. 



76 

people, the Douay Bible and the Rhemish Tes- 
tament, have so falsified the sacred volume, 
as to make it teach the same doctrine and 
breathe the same spirit of hatred and blood, 
against Protestants. Thus the latter has the 
following comments : 

Matth. 3. " Heretics may be punished and 
suppressed, and may, and ought, by public 
authority, either spiritual or temporal, to be 
chastized or executed" 

Gal. 1: 8. " Catholics should not spare their 
own parents, if they are heretics." 

Heb. 5: 7. "The translators of the Protes- 
tant Bible ought to be abhorred to the depths 
of hell." 

Rev. 17: 6. Drunken with the blood of saints* 
" Protestants (says the comment) foolishly ex- 
pound this of Rome, for that there they put 
heretics to death, and allow of their punish- 
ment in other countries ; but their blood is not 
called the blood of saints, no more than the 
blood of thieveSf man-killers, and other malefac- 



77 

tors, for the shedding of which, by order of 
justice, no commonwealth shall answer." 

No wonder, that in Roman Catholic coun- 
tries, where the priests had full opportunity to 
inculcate this exterminating spirit on the people, 
the latter were willing to execute the horrid 
persecutions against Protestants, which stain 
the annals of Europe. Yet we do not believe 
that the mass of American Catholics have im- 
bibed the inhuman, persecuting spirit breathed 
by their Bible. We believe they are more 
humane and charitable than the priests wish 
them to be, and than they would permit them 
to be, if Romanism had the ascendancy among 
us. 

In full accordance with the above settled 
and avowed persecuting principles of popery, 
the infernal inquisition has been put and kept 
in operation, whenever the pope and priests 
could accomplish their ends. I know, the 
Jesuit bishop England, in his Sermon before 



1 Protest, vol. II. 752. II. 114, 

7# 



78 

Congress, repeated the usual evasion, that the 
inquisition is a civil and not an ecclesiastical 
tribunal. But this is all a piece of subterfuge. 
It is true that the horrors of the inquisition can 
be carried into full execution only where the civil 
government has become connected with the 
Romish church, and in such countries w T here 
the government sanctions the inquisition, it is, 
we believe, customary, that a civil officer is 
appointed to execute the sentence of the inqui- 
sition on the hapless victim of their power. 
But the whole trial is conducted, and sentence 
passed, by ecclesiastical officers. None but 
priests can be inquisitors, and the tortures in 
the inquisition itself are, in every sense, under 
their entire control, and applied exclusively by 
their command, and in their presence, and by 
their minions. As w r ell might it be said that 
our county courts are not civil but religious 
tribunals, because the hangman who executes 
the sentence pronounced by them, is a Luthe- 
ran or Calvinist, a Methodist, or perchance a 
Romanist ! No case, if we mistake not, has 



19 

ever occurred in the history of the inquisition, 
in the millions of victims sacrificed by this 
bloody tribunal, in which the civil officer has 
dared to refuse to execute the sentence of the 
inquisitors ; for he well knew that his own 
bones would pay the price of his temerity ! 
The inquisition therefore undoubtedly remains 
what it always has been, an ecclesiastical tri- 
bunal, the engine of an intolerant, persecuting 
church to inflict tortures the most inhuman and 
savage, on all who dare to exercise their natur- 
al and unalienable right, of judging for them- 
selves in matters of religion, and obeying God 
rather than man ! The inquisition gradually 
grew out of the duty enjoined on the bishops by 
Pope Lucius III. A. D. 1184, to visit each his 
diocese, at least once or twice a year, for the 
purpose of searching for heretics. Pope Inno- 
cent III, by his bull of 1207, sent his inquisi- 
tors against the Waldenses, 1 and the fourth 

1 Eisenschmidt's Romisches Bullarium, vol. I. p. 
31. 



80 

Lateran council in 1215, in order that this 
bloody work might be prosecuted without any 
interruption, converted this inquisitorial power 
of the bishops into a standing inquisition, which 
establishment was further matured at the 
council of Toulouse, 1229. In the year 1232-3, 
pope Gregory IX. appointed the Dominicans 
perpetual inquisitors in the name of the pope} 
In 1261, pope Urban IV, issued a brief, order- 
ing that in all cases where bishops had com- 
menced process against any persons accused 
before the inquisition, the decisions of the in- 
quisitors should have precedence, and the exe- 
cution of the punishments denounced by them 
not be hindered. In 1325 pope John XXII. 
forbade the formation of treaties with heretics, 
pronounced those already made not binding, 
and directed the inquisitors to arrest all per- 
sons charged with favoring or harboring here- 
tical persons. 2 Pope Paul III, in 1542, issued 

1 See Grieseler's Hist. vol. II. p. 383. Note 18. 
<* Adjicimus insuper," &c. 

2 Eisenschmidts Bullarium Romanum vol. I. p. J 64. 



SI 

a bull for the express purpose of fortifying and 
giving increased efficacy to this infernal tribu- 
nal. He, amongst other things, decreed, that 
no persons, of any rank or pursuit, shall be 
exempt from this tribunal, on pretence of hav- 
ing received any such license or privilege of 
exemption from the papal chair. He says ex- 
pressly " that the powers of the inquisitors shall 
now and hereafter extend to all persons sus- 
pected of heresy, &c. — That no civil authori- 
ties shall dare to prevent the inquisitors from 
executing their functions, &C. 1 In another bull 
issued A. D. 1542, this pontiff established a 
General Congregation of the Inquisition, with 
power to arrest, and even imprison (carceri- 
bus mancipandi) suspected persons of any and 
of every rank, to prosecute their trial to a 
final decision, when the canonical punishments 
shall be inflicted, and the property of those 
condemned to death, be disposed of. 2 — And 

1 Id. vol. II. p. 1. 2. 3. and B. Magnum T. I. p. 
751, const. 80. ed. Lux. 2 Idem. vol. 11. p. 4, 



82 

finally he, in advance, pronounces all their de- 
cisions valid, demands inviolable obedience to 
them, and pronounces every attempt of the 
civil authorities to interfere with the powers of 
the inquisitors null and void." * 

And the Council of Trent, the last general 
council of the Romish church-, ^our members of 
which had themselves been inquisitors, 2 ex- 
pressed great interest in behalf of the inquisi- 
tion. 3 In view of all these facts, the ecclesias- 
tical character of the inquisition ought never 
again to be denied. The popes and Romish 
church have continued 4 to this day to favor 
and preserve this tribunal wherever they could, 
and even in these United States, Bishop Eng- 
land attempted, in a lecture at Baltimore, to 
vindicate and eulogize this satanic institution. 5 



1 Id. p. 5. and Bull. m. Tom. L p. 762. 

2 Mendham's council of Trent, p. 190. 

3 Mendham's Council of Trent, pp. 189, 190. 

4 Dr. Brownlee, Popery an Enemy, &c. p. 105. 
&c. 

5 See Smith's Synopsis of St. Ligori, p. 313. 315. 



83 

According to Llorente, this fearful tribunal 
cost Spain alone 2,000,000 of lives, and the 
amount of torments suffered by these, and the 
other victims of papal persecution, was proba- 
bly greater than that of all the generations that 
ever lived and died in God's appointed way, 
by natural death. A glance at the nature of 
these tortures will illustrate our idea. One 
mode of torture is by the pendulum, " The 
condemned,' 5 says Llorente, " is fastened in a 
groove upon a table puon his back ; suspended 
above him is a pendulum, the lower edge of 
which is sharp, and it is so constructed 
as to become longer at every stroke. The 
wretch sees this implement of destruction 
swinging to and fro above him, and every mo- 
ment the keen edge approaching nearer and 
nearer : at length it cuts the skin of his nose, 
and gradually cuts deeper and deeper, till life 
is extinct." This punishment is yet in use in 
this secret tribunal ; for one of the prisoners 
released when the Cortes of Madrid threw 



84 

open the inquisition in 1820, had actually been 
condemned to it, and was to have been execut- 
ed on the ensuing day ! Another mode of tor- 
ture consists in hoisting the victim to the ceil- 
ing by several thin cords tied to his wrists upon 
his back, whilst a weight of 100 lb. is attach- 
ed to his feet. He is then suddenly suffered to 
drop, yet not so low as to let the weight touch 
the floor. His fall is so sudden and the shock 
so great as to dislocate his shoulders and often 
to break his bones ! ! A third torture " consist- 
ed of an instrument something like a smith's 
anvil, fixed in the middle of the floor, with a 
spike on the top. Ropes are attached to each 
corner of the room, to which the criminal's legs 
and arms are tied, and he is drawn up a little 
and then let down with his back bone exactly 
on the spike of iron, upon which his whole 
weight rests. A fourth torture, being what is 
termed a slight one, they apply only to women. 
Matches of tow and pitch are wrapped round 
their hands, and then set on fire and suffered 



85 

to burn until the flesh is consumed. 1 A fifth is" 
the torture by fire. " The prisoner is placed 
with his naked legs in the stocks. The soles 
of his feet are then well greased with lard (or 
other penetrating and inflammable substances' 2 ) 
and a blazing chafingdish applied to them, by 
the heat of which they become perfectly fried. 
When his shrieks and lamentations were great- 
est, a board was placed between his feet and 
the fire for a while ; and then taken away again, 
if his tormentors were not satisfied. Another 
mode of torture was the dry pan ; in which 
the victim was literally roasted to death by a 
slow fire." Another method is thus described 
by McGavin, who bad been a priest at Sara- 
gossa in Spain, as certified by Earl Stanhope, 
who had known him there. McGavin escaped 
from that country, renounced popery, received 



1 History of the Inquisition, with an Introduction 
by the Rev. Cyrus Mason, New- York, 1835. 

2 Stockkale's History of Inquisition, p. 101, of 
the London 4to. ed. 1810. 



86 

orders m the Protestant Episcopal church in 
London, and published his Masterkey to Pope- 
ry, in which we find the following statement : 
" In a large room she (the guide) showed me 
(the witness) a thick wheel covered on both 
sides with thick boards, and opening a little 
window in the centre of it, desired me to look 
with a candle on the inside, and I saw all the 
circumference of the wheel set with sharp ra- 
zors. — This instrument is designed for those 
that speak against the pope and the holy fath- 
ers. They are put within the wheel, and the 
door being locked, the executioner turns the 
wheel till the person is dead." 1 A very fre- 
quent mode of torture is by water. The suf- 
ferer is tied down on a bench, so tightly that 
the cords cut his arms and legs to the bones. 
His nostrils are closed, and a filter inserted into 
his mouth, through which a large quantity of 
water is gradually poured. The wretched vic- 

1 McGavin's Masterkey to Popery, p. 235, Ha- 

gerstown eel. 



87 

tim is compelled at ever) 7 breath to swallow a 
mouthful of water, until at length his stomach 
and breast are intensely swelled, and he at last 
either expires amid his indescribable sufferings, 
or a short reprieve is given, only to enable him 
to endure another torturing I 1 And the last 
torture we shall mention is by an infernal en- 
gine in the form of a female, the virgin Mary. 
When the inquisition was thrown open in 
Spain by Napoleon, such an instrument was 
found in the cell. The familiar was ordered to 
manoeuvre it. He did so. It raised its arms, 
beneath its robes was a metal breastplate filled 
with needles, spikes and lancets ! A knapsack 
was thrown into its arms, it gradually closed 
them and pierced the knapsack with a hundred 
deep cuts, all of which would have pierced, and 
often did pierce the living victim ! ! But it is 
enough. Humanity sickens at the thought, that 
man could ever be so estranged from his broth- 

1 Dr. Brownlee's Letters in the Roman Catho- 
lic controversy, p. 337. 



88 

er, as thus to become his " darkest, deadliest 
foe." 

" When (says Stockdale 1 ) the accused was 
condemned to the torture, they conducted him 
to the place destined for its application, which 
was called the place of torment. It was a 
subterraneous vault, the descent to which was 
by a great number of winding passages, in or- 
der that the shrieks of the unhappy sufferers 
should not he heard. In this place there were 
no seats, but such as were destined for the in- 
quisitors, who w r ere always present at the inflic- 
tion of the torture. It was lighted only by two 
gloomy lamps, whose dim and mournful light 
served but to show to the criminal the instru- 
ments of his torment. Here it was, unseen by 
any eye save that of God, that these fiends in 
human shape inflicted on their defenceless vic- 
tims tortures which humanity shudders to con- 
template, and which, if ought on earth can do 



History of Inquisition, pp. 191, 192. 



m 

so, present not an unapt emblem of the tor- 
ments of hell ! 

In addition to this regular, systematic pro- 
cess, the Romish church has been guilty of nu- 
merous, extensive and sometimes national per- 
secutions, in which hundreds of thousands of 
our Protestant brethren were butchered in cold 
blood. Need 1 point you to the bloody trage- 
dy of St. Bartholomew's massacre, when at the 
nod of the Pope a hundred thousand of the best 
people of France were massacred in cold blood 
by order of their own priest-ridden king Charles 
IX. Need I direct your attention to the mil- 
lions of Waldenses and Albigenses who were 
butchered in cold blood by the minions of the 
pope ? Need I speak to you of the thirty 
years' war in Germany, which was instigated by 
the Jesuits, in order to deprive the Protestants 
of the right of free religious worship, secured 
to them by the treaty of Augsburg ? Or of the 
I~ish rebellion, 1 of the inhuman butchery of 



1 The celebrated historian Hume, gives the fol- 
8* 



90 

about fifteen millions of Indians in South Ame- 
rica, Mexico and Cuba, by the Spanish papists ? 
In short, it is calculated by authentic histori- 
ans, that papal Rome has shed the blood of 
sixty-eight millions of the human race in order 
to establish her unfounded claims to religious 
dominion. 



lowing description of the suffering Protestants in 
Ireland, in the great massacre which began in 1641, 
in the reign of Charles I. 

" The rebellion which had been upwards of 
fourteen years threatened in Ireland, and which had 
been repressed only by the vigor of the earl of Staf- 
ford's government, broke out at this time with in- 
credible fury. On this fatal day, the Irish, every- 
where intermingled with the English, needed but a 
hint from their leaders and priests to begin hostili- 
ties against a people whom they hated on account 
of their religion, and envied for their riches and 
prosperity. The houses, cattle, and goods of the 
unwarv English were first seized. Those who 
heard of the commotions in their neighborhood, in- 
stead of deserting their habitations, and assembling 
together for mutual protection, remained at home, 

1 Dr. Brownlee's Popery an enemy to civil Lib- 
erty, p. 105. 



91 



What language then can express the grati- 
tude due from protestants to the Reformation, 



in hopes of defending their property, and fell thus 
separately into the hands of their enemies. Alter 
rapacity had fully exerted itself, cruelty, and that 
the most barbarous that ever in any nation was 
known or heard of, began its operations. A uni- 
versal massacre commenced of the English, (Pro- 
testants) now defenceless, and passively resigned to 
their inhuman foes ; no age, no sex, no condition 
was spared. The wife, weeping for her butchered 
husband, and embracing her helpless children, was 
pierced with them, and perished by the same stroke ; 
the old, the young, the vigorous, the infirm, under- 
went the like fate, and were confounded in one com- 
mon ruin, in vain did flight save from the first 
assault ; destruction was everywhere let loose, and 
met the hunted victims at every turn. In vain was 
recourse had to relations, to companions, to friends ; 
all connexions were dissolved, and death was dealt 
by that hand from which protection was implored 
and expected. Without provocation, without op/po- 
sition, the astonished English, (Protestants) being 
in profound peace, and full security, were massacred 
by their nearest neighbors, with whom they had 
long upheld a continued intercourse of kindness and 
good offices. But death was the lightest punish- 
ment inflicted by those enraged rebels ; all the tor- 
tures which wanton crueltv could devise, all the 



§2 

which has secured them the privilege of wor- 
shiping God according to the dictates of their 
own conscience without danger of being roast- 
ed at the fire, or having their bones broken on 
the rack ! The first principle which guided 
the reformers was, that no authority on earth 
could justly require them to act contrary to 
the dictates of their conscience, and they did 
not hesitate to tell the Emperor to his face, in 
the XVIth Article of the Confession presented 
to him at Augsburg, that if ever their civil 
rulers commanded them to do aught contrary 
to their convictions of duty, they were bound 
" to obey God rather than men." Luther him- 
self, the very earliest of the Reformers, de- 
nounced religious persecution in the most deci- 
ded terms. " Do you say, the civil govern- 

lingering pains of body, and anguish of mind, the 
agonies of despair, could not satiate revenge excited 
without injury, and cruelty derived from no cause. 
To enter into particulars would shock the least del- 
icate humanity ; such enormities, though attested 
by undoubted evidence, would appear almost incred- 
ible. 



93 

ment should inched not force men to believe, 
but only interfere, in order that the people be 
not led astray by false doctrine ? and how 
could heretics otherwise be put down ? I an- 
swer, to counteract heresy is the business of 
ministers, not of the civil rulers. Here a dif- 
ferent course must be pursued, and other wea- 
pons than the sword must fight these battles. 
The word of God must here contend ; if this 
proves unavailing, neither can civil govern- 
ments remedy the evil, though they should de- 
luge the earth with blood. Heresy is an intel- 
lectual thing, that cannot be hewn by the sword, 
nor burned with fire, nor drowned with water. 
The word of God alone can subdue it, as Paul 
says, " The weapons of our warfare are not 
carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling 
down of the strongholds, &c." 2 Cor. 10:4, 5. 
It is indeed true, that even the protestant 
churches did not at once throw off every ves- 
tige of popish intolerance, but the cases of per- 
secution by them were few and comparatively 
mild, and soon passed away. No Protestant 



M 

dhurcn ever embraced the Romish doctrine, 
that it is a duty by fire and sword to compel 
others to adopt our views. When protestants 
did persecute, it was in opposition to their own 
principles ; but when Romanists put protes- 
tants to death, they only do what their creed 
requires, what their books distinctly tell us they 
believe it their duty to do, whenever they have 
the predominant power in their hands. 

V. # The last feature of the Reformation to 
which we shall advert is, that it has delivered 
the civil government of the countries ichich em- 
braced it, from papal tyranny, and has given 
a new impulse to civil liberty, which has been 
felt in every kingdom of Europe. 

Since the relative tendencies of protestant- 
ism and popery have been fully developed and 
attentively studied, no fact in the philosophy of 
history is more fully established than that the 
former is intimately allied to civil liberty ; and 

* This entire part of the discourse was omitted 
in the delivery for want of time. 



95 

the latter to civil despotism. Ecclesiastical 
government, like that which pertains to the 
state, may be divided into government of the 
will or authority, and government of law or 
reason. The several protestant churches are 
confessedly governed by fixed principles of 
reason and scripture. They have adopted the 
word of God as their ultimate book of facts 
and principles in morals, by which they profess 
to be guided, to which they refer in all doubt- 
ful or disputed cases. This book they freely 
circulate among the community, that all may 
study the subject, become qualified to judge for 
themselves, and exercise their civil influence 
in defence of their rights. Romanism demands 
absolute, unconditional submission to the de- 
cisions of mother church, discourages all effort 
in the community to judge for themselves, yea 
prohibits the general reading of God's word, 
interdicts altogether the writings of those who 
impugn the positions of the church, and con- 
demns as mortal sins every attempt to vindi- 
cate the unalienable rights of the people. Nay 



96 

it even conceals from its own laymen those 
decrees of councils and bulls of popes, which 
are most dangerous to their own liberties and 
those of their protest ant brethren, although it 
requires them all from Sabbath to Sabbath to 
repeat their belief in them. Thus creating a 
habit of instinctive submission to certain un- 
known doctrines or principles of their church, 
and preparing at least the less enlightened 
eventually to execute purposes of cruelty and 
injustice, from which, if honestly dealt with, 
they would shrink with horror. To what fla- 
grant violations of the civil rights of govern- 
ments and people, these principles of popery 
led in the course of her history* is also but too 
indelibly impressed on the annals of Europ e 
and South America and even Asia ! How 
much, how incalculably much the Protestant 
nations have gained by the Reformation, is 
demonstrated by their manifest and striking 
superiority to their Catholic neighbors in 
every thing relating to civil rights and liberty, 
to internal improvements, to domestic purity 



97 

and happiness, to literary activity and enter- 
prise and to scientific investigations. But that 
we may do no injustice to the Romish church, 
we shall let her own standard writings illus- 
trate the facts in her history, and as her prin- 
ciples professedly change not, the investigation 
will be fairly applicable to prospective Roman- 
ism in our own country. The established prin- 
ciples of popery which have hitherto led to her 
encroachments on civil liberty, and must also 
do so in our country so soon as she prevails, are 
the following : 

1. The popes actually do claim at this day 
jurisdiction over the highest civil governments 
of the world. Listen to language of pope Pius 
VII., in his bull of excommunication against 
Napoleon in 1809 ; " Let them once and again 
understand, that by the law of Christ their 
sovereignty (the French empire) is subject to 
our throne ; for we also exercise a sovereign- 
ty; we add also, a. more noble sovereignty ; un- 
less it were just that the spirit should yield to 
9 



the flesh ; and celestial things to terrestrial. 5 * 1 
Hear again the language of the present pope 
Gregory XVI. but three years ago. His priests 
in Portugal were in rebellion against the gov- 
ernment, the government drove off the pope's 
nuncio, and confiscated the property of the re- 
bellious priests. The pope denounces them 
" for rashly arrogating power over the church," 
and adds : " We do explicitly declare, that 
we do absolutely reprobate all the decrees of the 
government of Lisbon made to the detriment of 
the church and her priests, and declare them 
null and of no effect." Hear finally the 
claims of Pius VII, in 1808, to his agents in 
Poland, the laws of the church do not recognize 
any civil privileges as belonging to persons not 
Catholic ; that their marriages are not valid ; 
that they can live only in concubinage ; that 
their children being bastards are incapacitated, 
to inherit; that the Catholics themselves are 

1 McGavin's Protestant, ch. 105, 107. Vol. II. 



99 

not validly married, unless they are united ac- 
cording to the rules prescribed by the court of 
Rome ; and that when they are married ac- 
cording to these rules, their marriage is valid 
even if they in other respects, infringed all the 
laws of their country. 1 Here then, if there is 
any meaning in language, the popes explicitly 
and honestly tell us, that they do claim autho- 
rity over the existing, civil governments of the 
land, and claim and exercise the power of ab- 
rogating the civil laws, made by the govern- 
ment. They do not even rest their claim on 
the fact, that the French and Portuguese had 
professed the Romish religion ; because as 
Dens' Theology, the present popish text book 
in Maynooth College, where Bishop England 
and multitudes of our Irish priests were educa- 
ted, informs us, " Though they (the Protestants) 
are not of the {Romish) church, they (the Pro- 
testants) being baptized, are subject to the 
(Romish) church" ! ! ! So that the same claim 

1 Quarterly Register, Vol. 3, p. 89, and Beech, 
er's Plea, p. 'l 73. 



100 

to the control of our government may be ex- 
pected to be asserted by the pope, so soon as 
he finds his catholics strong enough to sustain 
him. 

2. Again, the popes undertake to depose civil 
rulers and to absolve the people from their alle- 
giance to their own civil governments, even if 
they had formally pledged that allegiance by 
an oath. 

The third Lateran council, prescribes to all 
good catholics, " That oaths which contravene 
the utility of the church, and the constitutions of 
the holy fathers, are not to be called oaths, but 
rather perjuries." 1 

The fourth council of the Lateran is still 
more explicit in its decrees. Having first com- 
manded that "the secular powers, whatever 
office they execute, be admonished, persuaded, 
and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical 
censure, that as they desire to be reputed and 
accounted faithful, so they would publicly take 

1 Labbei Concilia, torn. X. p. 1522* 



101 

an oath for the defence of the (Romish) faith ; 
that they will endeavor in good faith, accord- 
ing to their power to destroy all heretics mark- 
edby the church, ou: of the lands of iheir juris- 
diction" — The council then proceeds to pre- 
scribe the remedy of the church, in case any 
civil ruler should refuse to exterminate his sub- 
jects at the bidding of the papal minions. " But 
if the temporal prince, being admonished and 
required, shall neglect to purge his land from 
this heretical filthmess, he shall be excommu- 
nicated by the bishops of the province, and if 
he shall refuse to give satisfaction within a year, 
let it be signified to the pope, thai he may forth- 
with pronounce his vassals absolved from 
their allegiance (for not murdering their 
Protestant neighbors ! ! !) and expose his land 
to be possessed by Catholics, who having de- 
stroyed the heretics, may possess it without 
contradiction, &C." 1 To the decrees of these 
councils among others, every pope binds him- 

1 Labbei Concilia, Torn. XL Part. I. p. 148, 
can. 8, and Home on Romanism, p. 30. 
9* 



102 

self to adhere, in the following words : " I also 
without doubt receive and profess all other 
things, delivered, defined and declared by the 
sacred canons and general councils, and espe- 
cially by the holy council of Trent ; and all 
things contrary to them, with all heresies re- 
jected and cursed by the church, I likewise 
condemn, reject and curse." 1 And even the 
la!te pope Pius VII. explicitly says : " It is a 
rule of canon law, that the subjects of a prince 
manifestly heretical (Protestant) are releas- 
ed from all obligation to him, are dispensed 
from all allegiance and all homage" ! ! ! 
This is the theory of the Romish church, set 
forth in terms too explicit to be misunderstood. 
The popes therefore down to the present in- 
cumbent, do evidently claim the right and avow 
it as their obligation to denounce Protestant 
rulers, and to absolve their subjects from all 
civil allegiance to them. 

That the popes have not been remiss in the 

1 Pope Pius' Vllth Creed. 



103 

discharge of the duty enjoined on them by the 
canons, whenever they possessed the requisite 
power, is testified only too abundantly by the 
history of papal countries. 

Saint Gregory VII. twice anathematized and 
deposed the Emperor Henry IV. In 1116 the 
Emperor Henry V. was deposed by Paschal 
II. ; John, King of England, by Innocent III. 
in 1210, and Raymond, Count of Thoulouse, 
by the same pontiff, in 1215; the Emperor 
Frederick II. by Innocent IV. in 1245 ; Peter, 
king of Arragon, by Martin IV. in 1283 ; Mat- 
thew, Duke of Milan, in 1322, and Lewis of 
Bavaria, in 1324, by John XXII. ; Barnabas, 
Duke of Milan, by Urban V. in 1363 ; Alphon- 
so, King of Arragon, in 1425, by Martin V. ; 
the king of Navarre, by Julius II. in 1512 ; 
Henry VIII. king of England, by Paul III. in 
1538 ; Henry III. of France, in 1583. by Six- 
tus V. ; who, on hearing of this monarch's as- 
sassination by friar Jacques Clement, declared 
that the murderer's fervent zeal toward God 
surpassed that of Judith and Eleazar, and that 



104 

the assassination was effected by Providence ! 
In 1591, Gregory XIV. and in the following 
year the uncanonically elected Pope, Clement 
VII., issued bulls of deposition against Henry 
IV. king of France, whose life was first at* 
tempted by John Chastel, a Jesuit, then by a 
monk, and finally he was stabbed by Ravaillac. 
In 1569 Saint Pius V. deposed Queen Eliza- 
beth, whose Romanist subjects he stimulated 
to rebel against her, and furnished some of 
them with money to aid their nefarious at- 
tempts ; and bulls of deposition were fulmina- 
ted against that illustrious queen, by Gregory 
XIII. in 1580, Sixtus V. in 1587, and Clement 
VIII. in 1600. Sixtus V. in his bull, styled her 
an usurper, a heretic, and an excommunicate ; 
gave her throne to Philip II. of Spain, and 
commanded the English to join the Spaniards 
in dethroning her. Clement VIII. in 1600, is- 
sued a bull to prevent James I. ascending the 
throne of England, declaring that " when it 
should happen that that miserable woman 
[Queen Elizabeth] should die, they [her sub- 



105 

jects] should admit none to the crown, though 
ever so nearly allied to it by blood, except they 
would not only tolerate the [Roman] Catho- 
lic religion, but promote it to the utmost of 
their power, and would, according to ancient 
custom, undertake upon oath to perform the 
same." In 1643, Urban VIII. issued a bull of 
deposition against Charles I. in Ireland ; where 
two years before not fewer than 100,000 Pro- 
testants were massacred, and to those who had 
joined the rebellion of 1641, the same holy 
pontiff granted a plenary indulgence. In 1729 
Benedict XIII. at the instance of the Romanist 
Irish prelates, issued a bull to dethrone George 
II. King of England, with an indulgence for 
raising money to support the Pretender. In 
1768, Clement XIII. published a brief, on occa- 
sion of certain edicts issued by the Duke of 
Parma and Placentia, in his own dominions ; 
wherein the pontiff, in the plenitude of his 
usurped authority, abrogated, repealed, and an- 
nulled, as being prejudicial to the liberty, immu- 
nity, and jurisdiction of the church, whatever 



106 

the duke had ordered in his edicts, and forbade 
his subjects to obey their sovereign ; further de- 
priving all, who had either published or obeyed 
the edicts, of all their privileges, and incapaci- 
tating them from receiving absolution, until 
they should fully and entirely have restored 
matters to their former condition, or should 
have made suitable satisfaction to the church, 
and to the holy see. In 1800, the late pope 
Pius VII. announced his election to the pontifi- 
cate to Louis XVIII. as the lawful King of 
France ; and in the following year he exhibited 
a most edifying instance of papal duplicity, 
when it suited his interest, by entering into a 
concordat with Bonaparte, in which, besides 
suppressing 146 episcopal and metropolitan 
sees, and dismissing their bishops and metropo- 
litans without any form of judicature, he ab- 
solved all Frenchmen from their oaths of alle- 
giance to their legitimate sovereign, and author- 
ized a a oath of allegiance to the First Consul: 
and when Louis XVIII. sent his ambassador to 
Rome to present his credentials, the pontiffs 



101 

refused to receive him. With marvellous in- 
fallibility, however, not quite eight years after, 
the same pontiff issued a bull (in June, 1809.) 
excommunicating Bonaparte and all who ad- 
hered to him in his invasion of the papal states ; 
in which bull he makes the same extravagant 
pretensions to supreme power which had been 
put forth by Saint Gregory VII., Innocent III. 
and other pontiffs. 1 

But it may be asked, why have not the popes 
exercised this right against our own govern- 
ment, if they are in sober earnest in claiming 
its possession 1 To this interrogation we will 
permit pope Pius himself to furnish a very sat- 
isfactory reply. " To be sure,*' (he says) we 
have fallen into such calamitous times, that it is 
not possible for the spouse of Jesus Christ to 
practise, nor expedient for her to recall her 
holy maxims of just rigor against the enemies 
of the faith. But although she cannot exercise 
her right of deposing heretics (Protestants) 

1 See Home on Romanism, pp. 31, 32, 33. 



108 

from their principalities, and declaring them 
deprived of their property" &c. The reason, 
it seems, why the popes do not now dethrone 
protestant rulers as they formerly did, is not a 
change in their principles, but a want of power 
to execute their wishes, an unwillingness on the 
part of the protestant subjects to obey the lord- 
ly dictates of the pontiffs ! ! Hence the only 
course left for the holy father, is first to convert 
enough of these heretical subjects to the Ro- 
mish church, and train them to implicit obedi- 
ence to the priests, so that in due time they 
will be prepared to execute the pontifical man- 
date to "dethrone their heretical rulers," and 
extirpate their heretical fellow citizens. 

3. The third principle of popery which has 
led to infringement of civil liberties of Protest- 
ants is, that Romish ecclesiastics, priests, 
monks, and nuns claim exemption from the civil 
jurisdiction of the governments under which 
they live. 

The bull of Pope Paul V. termed " In coena 
Domini," or " At the supper of the Lord," in its 
fourteenth section, "excommunicates all persons, 



109 

both ecclesiastical and secular, who appeal 
from the execution of the pontifical briefs, in- 
dulgences, or any other* of their decrees — and 
all those who have recourse to secular courts 
for redress from Roman jurisdiction — and all 
those who hinder or forbid the publication and 
execution of those letters and decrees; and all 
those who molest, imprison, terrify or threaten 
those w T ho execute the commands of the Roman 
court. 1 

Section sixteenth, of the same bull, " curses 
all those who draw ecclesiastical persons, con= 
vents, &c, before their tribunal, against the 
rules of the canon law." 2 

And section twenty, of the same instrument, 
completes the work. It anathematizes and ex- 
communicates all and every the magistrates, 
judges, notaries, &c, who intrude themselves in 
capital or criminal causes against ecclesiastical 
persons, by;processing, apprehending or banish- 



1 M'Gavin's Protestant, Vol. II. p. 690. 69J. 
• Id., Vol. II. p. 691. 

10 



110 

ing them, or pronouncing or executing any sen* 
tences against them, without the special, parti- 
cular and express license of this holy apostolic 
see : and also all those who extend such licenses 
to persons or cases not expressed, or any other 
way abuse them, although the offenders should 
be counsellors, senators, chancellors, or entitled 
by any other " names" 1 The twenty-eighth sec- 
tion enjoins it on all prelates, bishops, priests' 
&c, absolutely to publish this arrogant bull at 
least once a year in their churches* Whether 
this bull is regularly published in this country 
we know r not. Possibly the pope, who can and 
often has suited his religion to the times, has 
given a secret dispensation for a season in this 
republican country ; if not, it is now published? 
though probably in Latin, that it may not excite 
public attention. In Roman Catholic countries 
it is faithfully published and acted on : and even 
" though the Grand Duke Leopold, of Tuscany, 
frequently commanded the entire suppression ■ 

1 tfGavin's Protestant, Vol. II p. 691- 



Ill 

of it in his territories, that paper was, notwith- 
standing, affixed by the priests to the confes- 
sionals and sacristies ; w T hile others had the 
hardihood to publish it from the pulpit or the 
altar on the day specified by the pope." 1 

4. The fourth principle which makes them 
dangerous to civil governments is, that their 
priests, fyc, are under such oaths to the pope 
and his kingdom, as render them necessarily 
unfaithful to the civil liberties of any country. 

The oath taken by priests is as follows: 
" Omnia a sacris canonibus," &c. " All things 
defined by canons and general councils, and es- 
pecially by the Synod of Trent, I undoubtedly 
receive and profess. And all things contrary 
to them I reject and anathematize ; and from 
my dependents and others who are under my 
care, as far as possible, I will withhold. And 
this Catholic faith I will teach and enforce upon 
them" The canonical oath, which every pre- 
late takes at his consecration, runs thus : " Ego 

1 M'Gavin's Protestant, Vol. II. p. 697. 



112 

ab hac hora," &c. " From this hour forward I 
will be faithful and obedient to my Lord the 
pope, and his successors. The counsels with 
which they trust me, I will not disclose to any 
man, to the injury of the pope and his succes- 
sors. I will assist them to retain and defend 
the popedom and the royalties of Peter against 
all men. I will carefully conserve, defend and 
promote the rights, honors, privileges, and au- 
thority of the pope. I will not be in any coun- 
cil, pact or treaty, in which any thing prejudi- 
cial to the person, rights, or power of the pope 
is contrived ; and if I shall know any such things, 
I will hinder them to the utmost of my power, 
and with all possible speed I will signify them 
to the pope. To the utmost of my power 1 will 
observe the pope's commands, and make others 
observe them. I will impugn and persecute 
all heretics, (Protestants,) and rebels to my 
7 ord the pope. ,n 

1 Pontifical. Romanor. de Consecrat. Elect, in 
Episcopum, p. 57, and M'Gavin, Vol. II. p. 694. 



113 

Now when it is recollected that the power 
claimed by the popes is as much political as re- 
ligious, that he claims control over all civil go- 
vernments, as has been already proved to you 
both by papal bulls and canons of councils, is it 
not difficult to evade the inference, that persons 
who have taken this oath to support all the 
power and "royalties" of the pope, cannot be true 
to the political interests of our own country and 
government, which are so diametrically opposed 
to those of popery ? 

Of a character still more glaringly treasona- 
ble is the form of a " Jesuit's oath of secrecy, as 
it remains on record at Paris, among the Society 
of Jesus." 1 In order, it would seem, to keep the 



1 The Oath of Secrecy. — I, A. B., now in the pre- 
sence of Almighty God, the blessed Virgin Mary, 
the blessed Michael the archangel, the blessed St. 
John Baptist, the holy apostles St. Peter and St Paul, 
and the saints and sacred host of heaven, and to you 
my ghostly father, do declare from my heart, with- 
out mental reservation, that his holiness Pope Urban 
is Christ's vicar general, and is the true and only 
head of the catholic or universal church throughout 

10* 



114 



whole body of ecclesiastics detached from the 
interests of civil governments, to make them an 
ecclesiastical and civil standing army, true only 
to the interests of the popes, the 43d canon of 



the earth ; and that by the virtue of the keys of bind- 
ing and loosing given to his holiness by my Savior 
Jesus Christ, he hath power to depose heretical kings, 
princes, states, commonwealths, and governments, 
all being illegal, without his sacred confirmation, and 
that they may safely be destroyed : therefore to the 
utmost of my power 1 shall and will defend this doc- 
trine, and his holiness's rights and customs against 
all usurpers of the heretical (or Protestant) authority 
whatsoever: especially against the now pretended 
authority and church of England, and all adherents, 
in regard that they and she be usurpal and heretical, 
opposing the sacred mother church of Rome. I do 
renounce and disown any allegiance as due to any 
heretical king, prince, or state, named Protestants, 
or obedience to any of their inferior magistrates or 
officers. 1 do further declare, that the dcctrine of 
the church of England, of the Calvinists, Huguenots, 
and of other of the name Protestants, to be damnable, 
and they themselves are damned, and to be damned, 
tli at will not forsake the same. I do further declare, 
that I will help, assist, and advise all, or any of his 
holiness's agents in any place, wherever I shall be, 
in England, Scotland, and Ireland, or in any otber 



115 



the Council of Lateran, under Innocent III., 

actually forbids the Romish priests from taking 
the oath of allegiance to the civil government : 
"Sacri auctoritate Concilii prohibemus," &c. 



territory or kingdom I shall come to ; and do my 
utmost to extirpate the heretical Protestants' doc- 
trine, and to destroy all their pretended powers regal 
or otherwise. I do farther promise and declare, that 
notwithstanding 1 am dispensed with to assume any 
religion heretical for the propagating of the mother 
church's interest, to keep secret and private all her 
agents' counsels from time to time, as they intrust 
me, and not to divulge directly or indirectly, by word, 
writing, or circumstance whatsoever : but to execute 
all what shall be proposed, given in charge, or dis- 
covered unto me, by you my ghostly father, or by 
any of this sacred convent. All which 1, A. B., do 
swear by the blessed Trinity, and blessed sacrament, 
which 1 now am to receive, to perform, and on my 
part to keep inviolably : And do call all the heavenly 
and glorious host of heaven to witness these my real 
intentions to keep this my oath. In testimony hereof, 
I take this most holy and blessed sacrament of the 
eucharist ; and witness the same further with my 
hand and seal in the face of this holy convent, this 
day of An. Dom., &c. — JSPGaviri's 

Protestant, Vol. II. p, 256, 



116 

* By the sacred authority of this Council, we 
declare, that it is unlawful for secular princes 
to require an oath of fidelity and allegiance of 
their clergy ; and peremptorily forbid all priests 
from taking any such oath if it be required" 
According to this canon, no Romish priest can 
be naturalized as a^ citizen of our republic. It 
is a curious topic of inquiry, whether Romish 
priests do generally become naturalized or not. 
Would it not be an interesting and important 
circumstance, if the inquiry should establish the 
fact, that of the whole mass of foreign priests, 
not one has become a naturalized citizen of our 
country ? We do not assert the fact, yet we 
should not be surprised if it is found true. We 
have never ourselves heard of a case of such 
naturalization. 

Thus have we presented to you some of the 
anti-republican principles of popery, derived not 
from doubtful sources, not from the fabrications 
of Protestants, but from the bulls and canons of 
the Romanists themselves, all which the priests 
are by oath bound to observe. Prior to the 



13? 

Reformation these principles were fully acted 
out in Europe ; and since that time they 
are still observed in all Catholic countries, ex- 
cept where the civil governments, even though 
Catholic, have not fully submitted. In our own 
country the priests can accomplish their objects 
only by degrees. Yet do w T e not perceive symp- 
toms of their progress ? Is it not a fact, that 
even at this day there are some popish nunne- 
ries, &c, in our" country, into the interior of 
which no civil officer is ever admitted ? Does 
not this look like a gradual assertion of the 
claim to exemption from civil control enjoined 
by their bulls and canons ? The hostility of 
their leaders to our political institutions has even 
been openly professed, and therefore cannot well 
be denied by them, nor doubted by the most 
charitable Protestants. Bishop Flaget of Ken- 
tucky complains in his letters to his superiors in 
Europe, that the conversion of the Indians to 
Romanism is principally retarded by their in- 
tercourse with the whites, " which," he adds, 
■" cannot be hindered as long as this Republic 



IIS 

shall subsist" Mr. Baraga, another Austrian 
Jesuit, laments "the evils of a free government" 
and of " this too free government ! /" When 
therefore we reflect, that republican institutions 
are alike hostile to the ecclesiastical despotism 
of Rome, and the civil despotism of Austria and 
Europe generally, nothing can be more evident 
than that the downfall of our government would 
advance the interests of both ecclesiastical and 
political monarchists, and is naturally desired 
by them, even if they had not themselves con- 
fessed the fact. The monarchists and statesmen 
of Europe well know the fruitlessness of an at- 
tempt to destroy our republic by open invasion. 
The only mode of reaching us is by indirect 
action. What pretext could be more specious 
than that of religion ? And as popery, which 
is a system of politico-religious despotism, is 
well understood to be hostile to liberty in every 
form, the enemies of human rights must rejoice 
in its extension, however indifferent they may 
be to every thing like true religion. When, 
tinder these circumstances, we see hundreds of 



119 

societies organized in Catholic Europe, and pat= 
ronized by the first politicians and "monarchists 
of Austria, to propagate popery in America, 
their motive may be easily conjectured. When 
we learn, too, that this motive is the current 
topic of conversation in the higher circles of 
Europe, and that the few friends of human lib- 
erty there feel an anxious apprehension from 
the machinations of Roman priests ; when even 
the venerable patriot Lafayette was constrained 
to exclaim to different American citizens, " If 
the liberties of your country are destroyed, it 
can only be by the popish clergy ;" it becomes 
us to lend respectful attention to this subject, 
and in a suitable, Christian manner, endeavor to 
resist the encroachments of the enemy. 

Here we are met by the objection, that pa- 
pists, when interrogated, deny every intention 
hostile to our liberties, and ought they not to 
be believed 1 We answer, the mass of com- 
mon papists we have already exonerated from 
the charge of being privy to such designs. 
The secret has not been fconfided to them* 



120 

They are only taught implicitly to obey the 
priest and pope and councils, at the hazard of 
eternal ruin, and thus in due time, as common 
soldiers to obey their commanders. But, some 
of their leading bishops and priests have denied 
all such design. True, but these are well ac- 
quainted with the decree of the council of Con- 
stance, that no faith need be kept with heretics, 
in virtue of which poor Huss, though in pos- 
session of a letter of safe conduct from Empe- 
ror Sigismund himself, was committed to the 
flames.— They well know also that this canon 
with respect to not keeping faith with heretics 
was distinctly recognized by the council of 
Trent, the last general council that has been 
held J; and that it is therefore still in force. 1 

1 M'Gavin's Protestant, Vol. I. p. 203, 294. " His- 
tory abundantly testifies how faithfully the decree of 
that Council has been observed. Not to insist upon 
the numerous plots and conspiracies against the re- 
formed religion in Great Britain, from its establish- 
ment to the memorable gunpowder conspiracy, and 
the Irish conspiracy in 1729 ; witness the martyr- 
dom of John Huss, who, though he had a safe con- 



121 

Now supposing these priests even to be consci- 
entious men, as they believe and obey those 

duct from the emperor Sigrsmund, guaranteeing his 
free access to the Council of Constance, and his free 
return from it, was nevertheless imprisoned there ; 
and, after a process on a charge of heresy, was con- 
demned and burnt to death, in violation of every law, 
human and divine. Witness the massacre of St, 
Bartholomew, in 1572, when 500 Protestant gentle- 
men, and 10,000 of the lower classes, were assassi- 
nated at Paris, and not fewer than 40,000 in the pro- 
vinces ; at which pious tidings, Gregory XIII. was 
so overjoyed that he commanded a discharge of ar- 
tillery to be made, ordered the cardinals to return 
solemn thanks to Almighty Cod, and caused a medal 
to be struck in honor of the unprincipled transaction. 
Witness also the massacre of 1641, in Ireland, where 
(as in France, sixty-nine years before) no ties of na- 
ture or of friendship could prevent papists from em- 
bruing their hands in the blood of their nearest Pro- 
testant relations. To these instances may be added 
the unprincipled revocation of the sacred and irrevo- 
cable edict of Nantes, by Louis XIV., against the 
faith of the most solemn treaties, in consequence of 
which the Protestant churches were destroyed 
throughout France ; the soldiers committed the most 
scandalous excesses ; and after the loss of innumera- 
ble lives, 50,000 of the most valuable and industrious 
of the citizens of France were forced into exile. 
Once more, in 1712, when by virtue of the treaty of 

11 



122 

canons, they can state any thing, and deny 
any thing, even with an oath, as the papal bull 
declares, and their oath itself is not binding if 
the violation of it advances the interests of the 
church ! So long therefore as these canons re- 
main unaltered, and priests continue by an 
oath to bind themselves to obey thecn, they 
cannot reasonably expect intelligent Protestants 
to believe their disclaimer. At the time of the 
American revolution, the several Protestant 

Alt-Rastadt certain places were to be surrendered to 
some Protestant princes, Pope Clement XL in a let- 
ter to the Emperor Charles VI. denounced the Pro- 
testants as " an execrable sect," and in the plenitude 
of his pretended supremacy declared that every thing, 
which either was or could be construed or esteemed 
to be in any way obstructive of, or in the least de- 
gree prejudicial to, the Romish faith or worship, or 
to the authority, jurisdiction, or any rights of the 
church whatsoever, "'to be, and to have %een, and 
perpetually to remain hereafter null, unjust, repro- 
bated, void, and evacuated of all force frem the be- 
ginning ; and that no person is bound to the observ- 
ance of them, although the same have been repeated, 
ratified, or secured by oath.''' — Digest of Evidence on 
the State of Ireland. Part IT. p. 243. Home on 7?o- 
■ vianism, p. &5. 



1^3 

efmrches, whose creeds contained a prolessiorr 
of allegiance to kings,, &c, or other principles 
inconsistent with our republican institutions, ex- 
punged the objectionable articles, and threw off 
all foreign allegiance. But Catholics have never 
done so. Let them do this ; let them openly 
renounce allegiance to all foreign potentates,, 
and reject those canons of councils and bulls of 
the popes, which are hostile to our liberties ; and 
they will secure the confidence of their fellow 
citizens : w T e shall be among the first to do them 
justice, In the mean time we must regard a& 
the special work of God, that glorious Reforma- 
tion, which opened the eyes of Europe on the 
corruptions and arrogant claims of popery \ 
which taught princes to vindicate their rights 
against the encroachments of the pretended 
vicar of Him who had "no kingdom of this 
world." Let us cherish the recollection of that 
wondrous work of God r which restored to the 
people the blessed Bible, that principal instru- 
ment of the Reformation, and rendered acces- 
sible to all the pure and unerring plan of salva- 



124 

tion taught by the Savior and his apostles. In 
view of all the facts of the case, let the patriot 
and the Christian seriously inquire, whether the 
subject of progressive Romanism amongst us is 
not worthy of their attention ; whether love to 
their wives and children does not call upon them 
to guard against even the distant dangers of 
papal cruelty and superstition ? Let them not 
regard with indifference the rapid increase of 
those foreign emissaries among us, who still re- 
tain their allegiance to a foreign power. Let 
them not regard as uncharitable those who re- 
echo the alarm which the apostle of liberty, La- 
fayette, first sounded in our ears. That order 
of men especially, now spreading over our land, 
the disciples of Loyola, who have proved so for- 
midable to the strong arm of civil government 
in Europe, as to have been suppressed or ban- 
ished at thirty different times, should not be re- 
garded as a contemptible foe, or as unworthy 
of being attentively watched. Let civilians and 
statesmen investigate, not the religious doctrines, 
but the political principles and canons ofpo- 



125 

pei y, ibr popery is not less a political 1 than a 
religious system. The priests and Jesuits form 



1 The writer would earnestly invite the attention 
of his fellow citizens to the following extract from a 
highly interesting recent work, entitled, " Confes- 
sions of a French Catholic Priest; to which are 
added.. Warnings to the People of the United States." 
This priest is now in New-York, and the translator, 
S. F. B. Morse, of the New-York University, vouches 
for the character of the author and credibility of his 
statements. The scenes here revealed by one who 
was himself an actor in them, but whose awakened 
conscience prompted him to abandon such a corrupt 
association, will enable politicians to appreciate the 
solemn prediction of the great Lafayette, that if Ame- 
rican liberty is destroyed it will be by Catholic priests. 
In reference to our own country, we would merely 
say, What intelligent politician does not know that, 
in some places, the Romanists already hold the ba- 
lance at our elections, and that whenever a papist is 
a candidate, or any thing can be gained to their 
cause, or either party is thought more favorable to 
the papists as such, they move in a body under the 
direction of the priest, with a unanimity utterly un- 
known in any Protestant sect ? Their priesthood is 
a compactly organized legion, spread over the length 
and breadth of our land, each of whom can control 
almost every Catholic vote in his parish. All these 
priests are moved by eleven bishops, and by the arch- 
bishop and the pope's legate, Bishop England, the 
11* 



126 

a standing army of foreign allegiance in our 
midst. Unconnected with our population by 

head of the Jesuitic order in this country. And all 
these, down to the lowest priest, are under an oath 
of allegiance to the pope, who is a political as well 
as religious prince, while, if we mistake not, few if 
any of them (the great majority of them are foreign- 
ers) have taken the oath of naturalization and sworn 
allegiance to our own government. Would it not 
be prudent, in the present circumstances of our coun- 
try, to require by law all foreign priests and minis- 
ters of any and every denomination, Protestant and 
Catholic, before they can exercise their professional 
functions in this country, to become naturalized, and 
thus take the oath of allegiance to our own govern- 
ment ? Let the reader peruse the following extract 
from the warning of the converted priest, and then 
answer my question : — 

" Americans of every age, of every rank, mag- 
istrates and citizens, rich and poor, clergy and laity, 
by ail that is dearest to you, let a single feeling an 
imate you ; unite your ranks as in the day of battle, 
and if your foe attempts to introduce himself here, 
to creep in among you, let him meet every where 
an impenetrable wall ; if he proposes to you to ex- 
change the simple and pure faith of your fathers for 
his fanaticisms and superstitions, your liberty for 
his thraldom, answer as you would answer if any 
tyrant should propose to you to surrender your na- 
tional flag and betray your country. 



127 

the ties of domestic life, they live subservient to 
the interests of their alien master, and fight his 

" Such is the duty of every American, however 
you may be divided. Some ambitious men, I am 
informed, are to be found among you, hungry for 
power, who do not blush to make use of Catholics 
to compass their ends at the elections. Do those 
men belong to that American people whose fidelity, 
union, and devotion, sixty years ago, astonished 
Europe and commanded the admiration of the world ? 
In the days of your immortal struggle you had but 
one Arnold to betray the noble cause, and his name 
is dishonored for ever; and now, Americans, for- 
getful of their origin, of their duty and country, for- 
getful of the patriotism of their fathers, of the blood 
which flows in their veins, buy and beg the very 
voices of their enemies, of Roman Catholic priests. 
This only fact is an awful symptom, and proves but 
too truly that my fears are well-founded. 

" But perhaps those misguided, ambitious men do 
not know the enemy with whom they would join 
themselves. Let them open their eyes then, and 
learn what true Catholics, and especially what 
priests, have lately done in the elections of France. 
The history of past events is a lesson for the pres- 
ent day. When Louis XVIII. in 1819 granted his 
charter, which gave some rights to the French, all 
the true Catholics, and the clergy above all, chafed 
by this recognition ot the people's rights, left no 
means untried to violate and distort it, till they de- 



128 

battles. They are servants of the state as well 
as of the altar. Above all, let politicians, states- 



stroyed it by the ordinances of July, 1830. During 
this long struggle of fifteen years, between Absolu- 
tism and Liberalism, my fellow priests used all 
their power to revive their party, especially on the 
great day of elections. Then our bishops, (crea- 
tures of the king,) sent us their circulars, in order 
to warm our zeal and ardor. 

" And we, the faithful slaves of our spiritual Supe- 
riors, used all our influence — made public prayers 
for good elections ; we preached in the pulpit to our 
parishioners, in the catechism to the boys, in the con- 
fessional to every body, that Liberalism (or the party 
of Liberty) was a guilty heresy ; it was a mortal sin 
to give one's voice for this party, and we tried by 
every means to dishonor and tarnish its adherents.* 
The throne and the altar was the watch-word, was 
the enjoined text of all our discourses. We required 
in confession rigorously, from the electors, the name 
and opinion of their candidates, obliged them to vote 
according to our direction, under pain of refusal of 
absolution. f If electors themselves did not come to 



* A singular proof of the natural hatred of the clergy for 
liberty, is, that Lafayette is represented by them as a very bad 
man. In order to judge of this hero's character, it was neces- 
sary for me to come to America. 

t In 1833, the author assisted at the administration of the 
last sacraments to a dying country gentlemen. The origin 
of his fortune was questionable, and he was a member of the 



129 

men, and Christians of every denomination unite 
in circulating the unadulterated word of God, 

the confession, we had their wives and daughters ; 
and we recommended to them that they should em- 
ploy all their influence to make their fathers and 
husbands of our party. 

The government, which relied upon our zeal, 
which knew that its interests were ours, instituted 
many societies of itinerant missionaries. They 
went from city to city, from village to village, to re- 
vive the ashes of Catholicism and preach servitude. 
They formed brotherhoods and associations of both 
sexes, in which they enlisted the most devoted 
knights of their religion and royal ism, the most ar- 
dent foes of liberty. And (striking circumstance, 
the best proof of the truth of my observations) all 
the deputies named by the country electors were 
enemies of liberty and of the press, because those 
country electors were under the influence of curates ; 
while in the cities the electors, more free and learn- 
ed, chose deputies who were friends of freedom. 

But when our party* saw that all its exertions 
were vain and useless, it introduced into the court 

Liberal party. His priest enjoined him, in order to legitimate 
his riches, to make some donations to the church ; but as fer 
his vote, the priest compelled him to call in his family, to beg 
pardon, for the scandal of having given in his vote to a Liberal 
man, and to beseech his eldest son not to follow his example. 
* As I was only a secondary wheel of this infernal machine- 
ry, I knew not all its secrets; but these few revelations are 
true to the letter. 



ISO 

without note or comment either Papal orP ro- 
iestant, among our Catholic fellow citizens, and 

of Charles X., about 1826, a secret ecclesiastic 
council, composed of the cardinals Be la Fare and 
De Latil, archbishops of Rouen and Rheims, the 
archbishop of Paris, M. De Guelen, and some pious 
laymen, worthy of their holy society. This coun- 
cil, called the Camarilla, directed all the acts of 
government, forced the public functionaries to go 
to confession, required from all the candidates to 
public situations an attestation of Catholic and 
Royalist principles delivered by the curate, pressed 
the unhappy Charles X. to name his stupid minis- 
try of the 8th of August, 1829 ; and at length, to 
issue the fatal ordinances of July, 1830. Thus has 
the Popish clergy lengthened the struggle of liberty, 
and compromised the well-being of thirty-three 
millions of Frenchmen ; thus it has divided them 
into two camps of mortal enemies ; thus, at last, has 
it ingloriously crowned the long story of its cruelty 
and oppression in my unfortunate country. 

" Since the accession of Louis Philip, the priests 
have kindled again the flames of civil wai\ They 
have sprinkled again with holy water the guns and 
pick-axes of the poor and slavish peasants of La 
Vendee* and Britagny, to raise them against the 

* Every body knows that La Vendee has been devastated 
by sword and flames, and unpeopled, in its wars excited by its 
priests against the republic in 1793-4. They attempted in 1830 
to renew the same horrors, but Philip has employed the most 
rigorous and oppressive measures to prevent it. 



132 

in persuading them to search the Scriptures a 
think for themselves. Let efforts be made to 
bring their children under the influence of Sab- 
bath school instruction, Let all. both young and 
old, be treated in the spirit of true Christian 
benevolence, and we doubt not that under God 
much can be accomplished for the preservation 
of our liberties, and the glory of our Divine 
Master. 

popular throne. But this new crime has ended, 
after some bloody fights, in bringing on La Vendee 
an army of thirty thousand soldiers, who, at the 
present time, crash this province, the tool of its 
priests ; and the clergy, seeing that Philip becomes 
from day to day as despotic as his predecessors, 
rallies itself round him, and unites once more the 
throne and the altar. Such as these are the men 
with whom you ally yourselves, Americans ; whose 
suffrages you beg, whose assistance you ask, in 
your elections : these are the men with whom you 
would divide the future destinies of ycur country* 
I wish you would but look at the history of Popery r 
and examine and see if ever a Catholic country has 
been happy" 

See also, on the political bearings of Popery, Dr„ 
Breckenridge's Discussion with Mr. Hughes, pas- 
siccu 



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